Street justice thrusts 10 to death in Bihar

NI Wire

New Delhi

Thu, 13 Sep 2007: 

Sep 13: In yet another shocking incident, angry villager of the Vaishali district in Bihar severely thrashed a group of 10 suspected thieves and sent them into death. It is the third incident within a month long time that forces the caretaker of our law and orderystem, and also human rights activists to take the seriousness of the case and act upon.

On Thursday morning locals of the village Rajapakada near Hajipur in the most talked about lawless land Bihar caught 10 people and killed who the villagers termed as thieves and were a continuous threat to the village. Though the district police have questioned some villagers but no further action has taken so far as the investigation is on to identify the persons killed and also to find-out whether they were actually thieves or not.

According to one villager those persons were thieves and were continuously a threat to the village. “A number of small and large scale snatching and robbery cases have been reported in the particular region and a result people starts take their own guard after police failed to stop such incidents. This is the result that people incidentally trapped those men and beat till death,” said an eye witness.

Reportedly in the early morning around 3:30am a mob of 200 people gathered and killed 10 on the spot and one was later sent into the Hajipur hospital. According to the doctors of the hospital his condition is very serious with grave injuries.

Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar responding to the episode told that a mass campaign will be initiated and law will take its own course in punishing the offender.

Meanwhile, cases have been registered from both sides but no arrest has been made so far.

Opposition leader and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav citing the previous cases told reporters that the state is in complete anarchy with no law and order.

This is the latest case of the so called ‘street justice’; a few days back a group of villagers pierced and scratched out the eyes of three young men alleging that they were motor cycle thieves.

In another incident that really shocked the whole country when a private TV channel televised a video in which first a mob severely beat up a man allegedly snatched a gold chain and later a local police officer tied the man into a motor cycle and dragged him some distance. The man is in hospital till date.

Police brutalities though present in many states of India but this kind of mob violence really a serious case of human rights violation. But administration can certainly do nothing without the participation of the people. Again when police himself violate laws then what can one expect from people. First of all our police officers should understand their duties and as law abiding citizens we should not take law into our hand. In this particular case the government should take action both against the villagers who did such a heinous crime and also the policemen who did not take the complaint of villagers seriously to act against the thieves as earlier.