LYNCHING HC seeks govt report on actions

The High Court on Monday directed the home secretary and inspector general of police to submit separate reports by November 28 on what measures were taken to prevent lynching.

A bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Md Ashraful Kamal also directed the government and the IGP to inform in the same reports what action was taken against perpetrators involved in lynching.

The bench in a rule also asked the government to explain in four weeks why their failures to save lives of Taslima Begum Renu in Uttar Badda and other victims from lynching would not be declared as unconstitutional for violation of constitutional provisions regarding citizen’s right to life and right to protection of law.

The court in the same rule also directed the respondents to explain why they would not be asked to devise effective mechanism to prevent lynching which caused huge threats to the lives of innocent people and to take preventive, remedial and punitive measures to stop lynching in future.

The court passed the order after hearing a public interest litigation writ petition filed by High Court lawyer Ishrat Hasan.

The respondents were the secretaries of the ministries of public administration, law, and education, the IGP, the deputy commissioner of Dhaka, the officer-in-charge of Badda police station and the headmaster of Uttar Badda Government Primary School in the capital.

In July, petitioner Ishrat Hasan submitted, at least 14 people were lynched across the country while over 50 survived lynching attempts as rumours of child lifting spread, according to reports published in newspapers.

Of the total victims, eight innocent people including Talisma Begum Renu were suspected to be child lifters and lynched amidst rumours that the construction of the Padma Bridge required human heads, according to the police headquarters on July 22.

Lynching of Taslima Begum when she went to visit to Uttar Badda Government Primary School for admission of her four-year-old daughter shocked the nation.

Rights activists and legal experts said that lack of good governance and of accountability of those responsible for bringing the perpetrators to justice as well as instigation by unholy quarters to use people’s sentiment and belief are also responsible for people’s taking the law in their own hands to ensure ‘justice’ instantly out of frustration. 

The number of mob beating incidents increased in July this year on suspicions that kidnappers were out to hunt for children’s heads for the under-construction Padma Bridge.

The unfounded fears apparently made mobs here and there so frenzied that innocent people were not spared.

Inspector general of police Mohammad Javed Patwari on July 24 at a press conference in the police headquarters in Dhaka had said that all the people killed in mob beating on child-lifting rumour were found innocent in the police investigation.

The hike in murders and injuries in mob actions since early July prompted the police headquarters to request the public on July 20 not to pay heed to the rumours and not to take the law in their own hands.

As the mob beating continued, the PHQ on July 22 directed its unit chiefs and superintendents of police to create awareness in order to stop the mob beating.

‘People responsible for spreading rumours will be dealt with an iron hand, no matter who they are and how strong they are,’ the IGP said at the July 24 press conference.

He said that already 60 Facebook page links, 25 Youtube links and 10 news portals had been blocked for spreading such rumours.

‘A vested quarter is involved in spreading rumours  for destabilising the country. They are doing it from home and abroad,’ he added.

A total of 31 cases have been filed against some 103 people across the country for spreading rumours, he added.

At least 1,164 people were lynched between January 2009 and July 24 this year across the country despite government initiatives to stop the menace, according to data compiled by rights organisations.

Rights body Odhikar’s data shows that a total of 1,150 people were killed in mob beatings between January 2009 and June 30, 2018. Of them, 127 people were murdered in 2009, 174 in 2010, 161 in 2011, 132 in 2012, 125 in 2013, 116 in 2014, 132 in 2015, 53 in 2016, 47 in 2017, 48 in 2018 and 35 in the first six months of 2019.

The data compiled by Ain o Salish Kendra shows that a total of 840 people were killed between January 1, 2011 and July 24, 2018. Of them, 370 people or about 44 per cent of the total victims were killed in mob beatings in Dhaka division alone, out of the eight divisions in the country.

ASK data shows that 134 people were killed in 2011, 126 in 2012, 128 in 2013, 127 in 2014, 135 in 2015, 51 in 2016, 50 in 2017, 39 in 2018 and 50 this year until July 24.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net