Tag: Jharkhand lynching

Meerut: Tensions High After Lathi Charge on Lynching Protesters, 50+ Arrested

Internet services in the city were suspended between Monday and Friday.

New Delhi: Days after the Meerut police lathi-charged a group of people protesting Tabrez Ansari’s lynching, the situation in the city remained tense and internet services remained suspended between Monday and Friday.

Ansari passed away in Jharkhand on June 22, four days after he was beaten by a mob who suspected him of being a thief. A fact-finding report has alleged that the police, who detained Ansari immediately but not his assaulters, did not give the injured man medical attention.

Last Sunday (June 30), a protest was organised at Meerut’s Indira Chowk against the attack and the police’s action. Reports say thousands of people attended. According to the police, the protest turned violence after the march ended, when people where going back, and a lathi charge followed.

The FIR is against 50 named and 800 unnamed persons.

According to the Indian Express, more than 50 people have been arrested in connection with Sunday’s protest already, including main accused Badar Ali. Ali will reportedly be charged under the National Security Act. The other accused have been booked under Indian Penal Code sections including 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapon), 352 (assault), 336 (act endangering life personal safety). SSP Ajay Sahni had announced a reward of Rs 5,000 for anyone who had information on Ali before he was arrested on Thursday, The Hindu reported.

Ali, head of the Yuwa Sewa Samiti, had reportedly requested police permission for the gathering and been denied. The police claimed that Section 144 was in place and no assembly was allowed.

Also read: The India in Which Tabrez Ansari Died Continues to Live

A shopkeeper near Indira Chowk told the Indian Express that the police intervention made matters worse and increased tensions. “It was supposed to be a peaceful march. Yes, there was no permission, but the police action made it worse. Now that internet has been shut down and there is heavy police presence, people fear something might happen. Most people are not leaving home,” Noor Hassan said.

Since Sunday, police presence in the city has been high – including a flag march by senior officers. Personnel from the Meerut police, Rapid Action Force and Provincial Armed Constabulary have been deployed around Indira Chowk.

According to the Times of India, locals say that the police has arrested some people who had nothing to do with the protest.

A day after the Meerut protest, another group demanded that Ansari be declared a martyr outside a mosque in Mawana. According to the Indian Express, a lathi charge was conducted here as well.

India Take Heed, Lynchings are Crimes Against Humanity Under International Law

The systematic nature of the offences and alleged support by government functionaries for many of the killers all point to these brutalities reaching the level of international crimes.

In yet another gruesome murder a few days ago, a Muslim man was beaten to death in Jharkhand, while being forced to chant religious slogans. The spate of lynchings in the country seems to be on the rise, with new cases surfacing frequently.

Data indicate that the numbers have indeed been steadily rising, from one incident in 2012 to 31 in 2018. A majority of those lynched are Muslim. The names of Mohammad Akhlaq, Pehlu Khan and the most recent case of Tabrez Ansari are synonymous with these crimes.  

Despite having an obligation to do so, Indian law does not capture the legal elements of crimes against humanity. In December 2018, in a first-of-its-kind judgment, the Delhi high court acknowledged the deficiencies in Indian law in its capacity to address mass atrocities and international crimes. However, this does not make it impossible to classify such crimes into the most legally appropriate category. 

I believe that this pattern of lynching amounts to ‘crimes against humanity’, according to the definition of the phrase in international law. The systematic nature of the offences, the pattern, as well as the alleged support by government functionaries for many of the killers, all point to these atrocities amounting to international crimes. 

Also read: Congress Is a Silent Witness to Pehlu Khan’s Lynching

The definition of ‘crimes against humanity’ has evolved over the past few decades, and is codified in the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court. Trials at Nuremberg, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the UN tribunals for Rwanda and what was once Yugoslavia, the hybrid tribunals for Sierra Leone and Cambodia, and now the International Criminal Court, all contribute to the legal interpretation of this concept. I base my interpretation on case law from these international courts. Per the Rome Statute,

“…‘crime against humanity’ means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack…”.

The 11 listed acts include murder, extermination, deportation, torture, rape, persecution, apartheid, each of which are defined as well. However, these specific crimes have to be first situated in the chapeau or overarching requirements that are critical to the determination of what constitutes crimes against humanity. 

I believe that the lynchings are a systematic attack against a civilian population, thereby meeting the basic requirements of crimes against humanity. Case law points out that an ‘attack’ does not necessarily mean a military attack but may instead be a course of conduct such as apartheid, or an effort to make a population behave in a particular manner.

‘Population’ in this context means a group that is not ‘random’, and here it is amply clear that minorities are the overwhelming victims of these crimes and are targeted specifically. 

Protesters hold placards during the ‘Not in My Name’ roadshow against targeted lynching of Dalits and Muslims, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. Representational image. Photo: PTI

Crimes may either be ‘widespread or systematic’. These are disjunctive terms. While ‘widespread’ refers to a specific geographic area or a large number of those targeted, the more apt formulation here is the systematic nature of the attack, which is interpreted to mean organised acts of violence.

The meaning of organisation in this context is that the violence is meted out either by means of a ‘state or organisational policy’. The interpretation does not mean a specific policy directing such lynchings.

Rather, the lack of action of the government – no statements against this violence, lack of data, as well as the implicit and explicit support by state functionaries such as felicitating the accused – add to the articulation of policy.

Compound this with the inaction by the police, and few prosecutions, as well as the fact that no action has been taken in situations where officials have been present at the site. Furthermore, actions of local or regional organs of state should also be taken into consideration, we must not limit ourselves to the national level.

According to case law, such a policy does not need to be formalised. 

Also read: The Hole in Our Collective Psyche

These are the fundamentals of crimes against humanity; particular crimes within this fabric would include murder, torture, rape, and persecution.

And as an aside, for those inevitable detractors who will point to the record of the US I would also argue that the historical lynching of African Americans in the US would fall within the purview of ‘crimes against humanity’ too. 

International crimes attract greater legal scrutiny today, with countries under a legal obligation to prosecute perpetrators as well as state officials complicit in such crimes. The exercise of universal jurisdiction, where prosecutors the world over are under the obligation to follow up cases of serious international crimes, is on the increase.

But more importantly, there should be an increasing sense of urgency in responding appropriately and decisively to these lynchings in India and to prevent more such appalling crimes – lest we reach a point of no return. 

Priya Pillai is an international lawyer, with expertise in international human rights law and mass atrocity crimes. She has worked at the UN tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and has a PhD in international law. 

Watch | ‘Jai Shri Ram’ as a Political Slogan Is a Cover For Violence

In this episode of ‘Masterclass’, Apoorvanand speaks about how the slogan is being used as a cover to indulge in violence by right-wing extremists.

This week in Jharkhand, a man was brutally beaten for not chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’.

A day earlier, a teacher in Bengal was pushed from the train for not chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’.

When the newly-elected members of parliament took the oath, the hall filled with shouts of ‘Jai Shri Ram’. The slogan has never been so popular as it is after BJP’s win this elections.

In this episode of ‘Masterclass’, Apoorvanand reveals the harsh reality of how the slogan is being used as a cover to commit violence by right-wing extremists.

Cops Denied Tabrez Ansari of Medical Treatment, Threatened His Family: Report

A fact-finding team of the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha has revealed several brutal aspects of the lynching.

New Delhi: The family of Tabrez Ansari, who died on June 22, after being beaten by a mob which forced him to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman” in Jharkhand, was allegedly threatened by police with a similar fate when his family begged for him to be given treatment while he was bleeding profusely in custody. In the lockup, the family found the main perpetrator of the violence addressing Ansari, asking him why he was not dead yet, in spite of the severe beatings they administered on him.

These and many other aspects of the lynching, each outdoing the other in brutality, have been published in a report written by a fact-finding team of the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha. On June 25, the team travelled to the Kadamidiha and Dhaktidih villages in Jharkhand, where the attack on Tabrez took place.

The team, comprising human rights activists and advocates, spoke to Ansari’s family and his neighbours, all of whom were vehement in suggesting that it was very unlikely that he would have been involved in a case of thievery. Twenty-four-year-old Tabrez  got married a month-and-half ago and planned to take his wife to Pune, where he has been working as a welder for the past six or seven years.

The team also tried to speak to villagers living around the scene of the lynching, at Dhaktidih, but were interrupted by a group of men who swarmed them and begun saying that they were the “Jai Shri Ram waale” and that a thief has no religion and could easily be asked to chant “Jai Shri Ram,” be he a Hindu or a Muslim. Dhaktidih, the report noted, had a significant population of backward castes.

The area, the team were told, had little communal tension. Some villagers, however, recalled a year-old incident when members of religious right-wing organisations had told the Muslims to stop cattle trade. It did stop, but not for very long.

Also read: In Jharkhand, Modi Is Replicating What He Did in Gujarat in 2002

From accounts of Tabrez’s family members, which have been included in the report, not only does there appear to be a serious lapse in the way police acted in the case, but there are also glaring points of cruelty in the name of religious violence which come to the fore.

Some of the salient points that led to his death enumerated in the fact-finding report are as follows:

Tabrez had called his wife at 10 pm on June 17 from Jamshedpur, where he had gone to visit a relative with two 14-year-old boys of his in-laws’ village, Behrsarai. He told her that we would be returning that night. He had taken a bike. This puts into perspective the lynchers’ claim that the beatings were in retaliation for Tabrez stealing a bike.

In the morning, Tabrez’s wife got a call from him. He told her that he was being beaten in Dhatkidih village and pleaded with her to help him. She informed his uncles Maksud Alam and Masrur Alam, who went to the local police station to look for him. They could not find him in the Kharsawan police station, but found him in the lockup of Saraikela police station. He was found bleeding from the nose, mouth and head. He also had cut marks on his fingers. The police told them that he was caught for stealing.

Members of the fact-finding team discuss the events that led to Tabrez's killing with his family. Photo: Twitter/@JharkhandJanad1

Members of the fact-finding team discuss the events that led to Tabrez’s killing with his family. Photo: Twitter/@JharkhandJanad1

Masroor then told police station in-charge Bipin Bihari Singh that Tabrez needed immediate medical help. Singh told him “Yehaan se bhaago. Nahi to tumhara bhi haath-pao tod ke tumko jail mein daal denge.” (“Get away from here or else I will break your bones and put you in jail too.”)

Tabrez spoke to his relatives from the lock up. He said a few men had asked him for his name on the way back from Jamshedpur. He had said ‘Sonu‘ at first, but then they pressured him for his actual name. After this, they began beating him up. The two boys ran away.

After having been tied to the pole and beaten, Tabrez (according to relatives who spoke to him in the lockup) had asked for water. He was forced to drink the juice of dhatura, a poisonous weed, the leaves of which were stuffed into his mouth.

Also read: Does (Your) Blood Determine (Your) Morality?

Tabrez named one Pappu Mandal among his lynchers. Mandal and around 15 people were also at the police station when his relatives went to see him. Mandal, his relatives said, was the one who asked Tabrez why he was not dead in spite of the beatings.

On June 19 too, Tabrez was not given medical treatment despite multiple requests by his family. He was shifted to the local jail. At this point, he could no longer walk.

On June 22, the uncles were informed by an acquaintance that Tabrez was admitted to the Saraikela Sadar hospital. They went there and found him foaming at the mouth. The doctor told them that he was dead. A local reporter found that he was still breathing. He was then referred to the Tata Medical Hospital. When they reached the hospital in Jamshedpur, he was pronounced  dead.

Following his death, his family members lodged a case against Pappu Mandal and others.

According to Tabrez’s uncle, the theft accusation was made up after people realised that he was in a bad shape after the beating.

In Jharkhand, Modi Is Replicating What He Did in Gujarat in 2002

Instead of standing by the families of the killed and injured, the then chief minister of Gujarat had claimed that the state was being vilified.

The prime minister said in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday that he was saddened by the recent mob lynching, but “we do not have the right to insult the whole of Jharkhand”. When the killing of Tabrez Ansari is discussed, it is not with the intention to insult Jharkhand – for Ansari was also a son of the state. Jharkhand was, in fact, diminished when it lost him to a mob which insulted, brutalised and lynched him.

Since 2016, the state has seen a spate of mob lynchings. According to an editorial published in the Indian Express on June 27, at least 18 people have been targeted and killed by a mob since then – that is a large number for a small state. Needless to say, most of the victims were Muslims. To not recognise that the state has a problem does not actually help Jharkhand.

It is also a state where Hindus don’t get alarmed by the use of their revered God Ram while targeting Muslims. The images of a battered Ansari being forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ should shame Hindus and make them angry about the politics which is brutalising the Hindu masses.

One must look back to 2002 to understand what the prime minister is doing today. When the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat drew condemnation from across the globe, the then chief minister claimed that the state was being vilified. Instead of standing by the families and kin of the killed and injured and thousands of displaced Muslims, he chose to lead a campaign against insulting Gujarat.

In his Gujarat Gaurav Yatra, instead of condemning the killings, he led the Hindus into a state of denial over the anti-Muslim violence. In his speeches, he wanted his audience to believe and say that it was a canard being spread by the enemies of Gujarat.

Those killed, maimed and forced out of their habitats were also sons and daughters of Gujarat. But there was not a word of empathy for them from the then chief minister of the state. Instead, he added to their agony when he got relief shelters dismantled, making Muslims roofless once again – that too at a time when it was raining heavily.

Even then, it was not the whole of Gujarat which was involved in the violence against the Muslims of the state. The victims were also Gujaratis. The violence was planned and executed by an organised, majoritarian political force.

Also read: The India in Which Tabrez Ansari Died Continues to Live

A benchmark of insensitivity towards the Muslims was set in 2002 by the political leadership of Gujarat. It seeped into the masses. By making Hindus believe that they alone were the bearers of the identity of Gujarat, he tried to make them own the majoritarian politics that he practiced. The then chief minister of Gujarat, now the prime minister, is attempting the same thing in Jharkhand.

Ansari’s killing was an act of violence, but this violence is more sinister than other acts. When your identity becomes the cause of the violence against you, it affects not only the one being targeted but all those sharing that identity. No wonder, hate crimes are put in a different category across the globe.

One must understand what the prime minister was trying to do when he mentioned the violence of Kerala and Bengal, and called upon the opposition not to differentiate between ‘my violence’ and ‘your violence’. His party and the affiliates of the RSS have been portraying these two as states where Hindus are under attack. So, through a clever speech, the prime minister was making two categories and pleading with the opposition that they should also condemn the violence of their people and not merely target his people.

When the prime minister pontificates about non-partisanship, we should remember that it was his party and his ministers who facilitated and decorated the accused from cases Dadri to Ramgarh. These acts have created an atmosphere of impunity and also communicated to the law and order machinery that it is a special, official kind of violence in which the victims are to be made the accused first. Why should one be surprised or shocked that the Jharkhand police didn’t provide medical assistance to the dying Ansari, and instead threw him in jail, thus ensuring his death? Or, why criminal cases are filed against the attacked Akhlaq or Pehlu Khan or Alimuddin before the attackers?

Also read: BJP Minister Jayant Sinha Felicitates ‘Gau Rakshaks’ Convicted for Ramgarh Murder

In normal circumstances, one would expect the top political leader to express indignation over the use of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ by the attackers. By the time the prime minister chose to speak out, other parts of the country, from Assam to Bengal to Delhi had also seen the use of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ to humiliate Muslims.

From where did the crowds get this weapon of ‘Jai Shri Ram’? Who fashioned it and used it against political opponents? Recall the scene of the Lok Sabha where Muslim MPs were verbally assaulted by the same slogan. It was an act of violence – that too hate-violence. Why raise ‘Jai Shri Ram’ when a Muslim MP is going to take an oath?

Further back, remember the election meetings of the prime minister himself. He repeatedly made the audience raise the slogan of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ as if it was a political act of asserting their identity. He was creating a warring community. He did it with ‘Vande Mataram’ as well.

This slogan has nothing to do with religion. It is a hate slogan – to dominate and subjugate minorities. Can my Muslim journalist friend forget that in 1990 he was stopped at the Gandhi Setu on his way to Patna by the members of the Bajrang Dal and forced to chant Jai Shri Ram? It was when the chariot of Lal Krishna Advani was to enter Patna. The air of Patna was trembling with slogans of Jai Shri Ram and cars and bikes were allowed only after the riders chanted it. The present prime minister was then accompanying Advani.

Sudipta Kaviraj, while discussing the use of ‘Vande Mataram’, wrote:

“All societies, Durkheim argued, must have a language in which they value themselves, since one of the central devices for maintenance of societies is this mechanism for collective self-reverence.”

Is ‘Jai Shri Ram’ – with ‘Vande Mataram’ – part of a language used by a section of the Indian society which assures it of its value? Why then force the others to chant it? Valuing or revering yourself by violating the dignity of others is an expression of insecurity. Who created this insecurity in the Hindus?

You don’t have to dig deep into the archives. Images of a political leader with clenched fists and raised hands exhorting his audience to chant ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Jai Shri Ram’ would surface on the screen of your computer. It was the same man who challenged the chief minister of Bengal to arrest him for raising this slogan. The same person who pleaded for a non-partisan condemnation of violence in the parliament yesterday.

Apoorvanand teaches at Delhi University.

The Hole in Our Collective Psyche

If majoritarian sentiments play a role in the non-delivery of justice, it will only encourage fascistic elements currently on the loose.

Tabrez Ansari, the 25-year-old Muslim man killed by a Hindu mob in Jharkhand, was accused of stealing a motorcycle. Ansari was a migrant labourer who worked as a welder in Pune. He had come home for Eid.

His mother had passed away when he was three-years-old, and his father died in 2005 under mysterious circumstances. Death has been stalking the family.

Ansari was married barely two months ago to Shahista Parveen. According to Lukman, a friend, Ansari and his wife had booked tickets for June 24 to return to Pune. That journey has been aborted forever. Muslim lives are being fatally interrupted by Hindu mobs.

A video of the mob lynching popped up on social media. This is not simply a pattern, but a scheme behind the lynchings. When an accomplice of the mob films the event, does that person record a crime, or a justification? Is the intention to arouse empathy, or excitement? Is the cameraperson on the victim’s side, or the mob’s? Or is he disturbingly neutral? These questions are of a moral nature.

They gain wider significance when the video is watched by million others. If the individual behind the camera reflects the apathy of Émile Durkheim’s “collective consciousness”, we must question the moral state of this imagined collective, and its sick consciousness. It indicates a moral coma.

Also read: Shaukat Ali’s Humiliation and the Dehumanisation of the Human Condition

If the mob that attacked Ansari was indiscriminately violent about a purported crime of theft, why did the victim’s name and his religion matter so much? If the man was a thief, what sort of punishment was being meted out by forcing him to utter, “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman”? The man’s religious identity decided the nature of his punishment.

Even though the chants meant nothing to the victim, it meant everything to the mob. The demand the mob makes on the victim is revealing. It tells him – and us – that the mob alone has access to the sacred, while the victim has claims to none. When the victim chants the names of Ram and Hanuman under duress, he is not rescued from his predicament.

Ansari cannot be allowed to remain Muslim, nor can he be inducted into Hindu society. It is a failed moment of conversion. The victim falls into a territory where the meaning of his identity is in deep crisis, and where he is stripped of morality and rights. This is the symptom of territorial nationalism, where religion, culture, identity and morality become marked by dividing lines, and vigilante gatekeepers take over.

Also read: Does (Your) Blood Determine (Your) Morality?

There is another difficult aspect to this symptom that needs to be addressed. The mob creates a disconcerting moral issue, as it is a random assortment of people who come together sporadically to commit a crime. No individual may own any sense of moral responsibility, easily passing it on to the others.

It is difficult in such messy circumstances, to concretely pin down those responsible for murder. How do you legally punish a mob?

The practical inadequacy behind addressing this question has left a moral hole in the history of nations, where collective crimes have been committed in the name of religion and race. That hole exists in our collective psyche since Partition. A nationalism that rakes up the divisive language responsible for Partition, is openly seeking to re-legitimise collective crimes.

According to S. Karthik, the superintendent of police in Saraikela-Kharsawan, the officer-in-charge and the assistant sub-inspector, involved in the case, “did not handle the matter with sensitivity”, and nor did they “apprise senior officers of the situation”. 

Both police personnel have been suspended. If the law sides with a mob, what does it say of the state of justice? Is a migrant worker, and his family worth scorn, because a killer mob accused the man of being a thief? From the superintendent’s press report, it is clear the officials wanted to shield the people responsible for Ansari’s death. If majoritarian sentiments play a role in the non-delivery of justice, it will encourage fascistic elements currently on the loose, to enhance their violent, territorial propensities.

Also read: Intimidation Nation – You Cannot Play Cricket Here

Hate crimes unleash endless surplus of violence. The mob gets possessed and beats up a victim for hours. This excess is echoed in what Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in an article published on 22 June, 1953:

“Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.”

Ansari was beaten for hours, before the law intervened and took him to the police station. The police didn’t seem interested to investigate the absolute disproportion between an alleged crime and a real one, where a mob wielded the authority of law.

Ansari’s family asked why the assault was not mentioned in the confession statement produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate. Why shield the people who committed murder? The law in India seems to have clearly lost its moral compass.

Tabrez Ansari’s wife (right) says he was beaten to death because of his religion. Photo: ANI/Twitter

Ansari’s wife, Shahista Parveen, knows her husband was killed for being Muslim. She has no in-laws for company. Her husband was her only support.

“In whose care will I live?” Parveen asks, and affirms, “I want justice”. Justice is the larger question, always further away, and a difficult road to overcome. How will she live is a more immediate and palpable question she asks the world, she asks a nation that is preying on her people, and she asks herself.

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee is the author of Looking for the Nation: Towards Another Idea of India, published by Speaking Tiger Books (August 2018).

‘Saddened by Death but Don’t Insult Jharkhand’: PM Modi Mentions Lynching at Last

His hour-long address covered several topics before touching upon the Jharkhand lynching, on which he spoke for three minutes.

New Delhi: In his speech at the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about the Jharkhand lynching case where 22-year-old Tabriz Ansari lost his life after being beaten by a mob that forced him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’.

While replying to the debate on the motion of thanks to the President’s address, Modi spoke in a style not very different from the register he used in campaign speeches in the run up to and during the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

His hour-long address covered several topics before touching upon the Jharkhand lynching. Among them were jabs at the opposition’s anger with him, a wish for Arun Jaitley to return to the parliament and yet another mention of the sweeping mandate secured by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Also read: The India in Which Tabrez Ansari Died Continues to Live

Modi also tore into the opposition’s alleged claim that democracy had lost when the election was lost and called it one of the biggest insults to have been directed at the nation. “Arrogance has a limit,” he said, before proceeding to highlight the fact that the Congress had not won any seat in 17 states.

“Going by the Congress party’s arguments, I wonder whether Wayanad, Rae Bareli, Berhampore and Thiruvananthapuram seats too reflect the defeat of the country,” he said. The seats mentioned by Modi are ones where Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Adhir Chowdhury and Shashi Tharoor have won from.

Modi then spoke in defence of the ‘one nation, one election’ pitch made by his government, highlighted the work done by him under the Ujjwala Yojana, criticised those who have been critical of EVMs and said that the acceleration of aspiration that has taken place is no lie.

Finally, at the 41-minute mark, Modi turned the page of his script and paused, noting that he wanted to mention a “few other things”.

He began not with the news of the lynching itself, but the alleged fact that people have been saying that “Jharkhand has become the hub of mob lynching and mob violence”.

“Respected Speaker, everyone here feels sad that a youth was killed. I too feel sad. And we should, too. Those who are responsible should receive the strictest of strict punishments,” he said.

Then, after a dramatic pause, Modi continued, “But…is it appropriate to place the blame on the whole of Jharkhand state? If we do so, we will not have people who do good work there anymore. Those who have done wrong, isolate them. Apply the due course of law to them. But we cannot place everyone on the stand for the sake of politics.”

“We do not have the right to insult the whole of Jharkhand. They are also our citizens,” he added.

Also read: In Jharkhand’s Dumri, Police File Cases Against Adivasis Targeted by Lynch Mob

For any crime, Modi ventured, constitutional law is paramount. He also spoke about how the dialogue on “good terrorism and bad terrorism, my terrorism and your terrorism” has been at the root of all problems.

He then went on to say that hate crimes “be they in Jharkhand, be they in West Bengal, be they in Kerala” should be dealt with similarly. “Only then can we keep hatred at bay,” he said to applause.

Ansari, who was attacked by a mob who reportedly suspected that he was a thief on June 18, passed away on Saturday while in judicial custody. In a video of the attack, which took place in Dhatkidih village of Jharkhand’s Seraikela Kharsawan district, the mob can be heard forcing Ansari to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman”. He can be seen pleading with the mob to stop.

In the three minutes he spent on the issue, Modi did not mention communalism. Nor did he dwell on the youth who was killed, his age or his religious background.

By the 44th minute, he had moved on to how his government had been bolstered by the sabka vishwas which the people of the nation had apparently added to its ethos of “sabka saath, sabka vikas”.

Joking that ‘Azad saab’ (Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad) is needlessly angry at things, Modi then bizarrely said he would quote Ghalib because, “Azad saab likes these things.” He devoted the rest of the speech to asking the Congress to hold its working committee meeting at Sardar Patel’s statue, and lauding the success of the Ayushman Bharat scheme and the alleged full focus that his government has given to the northeast with no electoral dividends in mind.

Two Police Officials Suspended for ‘Insensitive’ Handling of Jharkhand Mob Attack

When recording Tabrez Ansari’s “confession” in a theft case, the police made no mention of the fact that he was beaten by a mob.

New Delhi: When the Jharkhand police took down Tabrez Ansari’s ‘confession’ in a theft case on June 18, they failed to mention that he had been captured and assaulted by a mob, who also forced him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. According to a report in the Indian Express, two police personnel have been suspended and 11 people arrested in the assault case.

The violence was recorded on one of the attackers’ mobile phones, and has been shared widely on social media. Ansari died in judicial custody on Saturday.

“We had registered a case against the villagers when we were informed of the beating. We arrested one accused initially, and later 10 others. We found that the officer in charge of Kharsawan police station and an ASI did not handle the matter with sensitivity. They did not apprise senior officers of the situation,” Karthik S., SP of Saraikela-Kharsawan, told the Indian Express.

“We have suspended two police personnel for the lapses. A DSP-rank officer is heading the SIT inquiring the matter and we will get all the facts. There is also a possibility that Tabrez did not say anything to the police on the beating during his confession,” he continued.

Ansari’s family has raised questions on the police’s role and said it would have been impossible for them not to know about the assault.  “I cannot believe that he never said anything to police about the beating. The police deliberately left it out. Were the police blind that they did not see that he was badly beaten? Why could the doctors not see his pain?” his uncle, Maqsood Alam, told the newspaper.

Also read: The India in Which Tabrez Ansari Died Continues to Live

The police was forced to take cognisance of the violence when Ansari’s wife, Shaista Parveen, filed a complaint on Saturday against ten accused persons. The FIR was filed only after the video of the violence had gone viral and led to public outrage.

Ansari’s confessions contains a detailed account of the theft allegedly carried out by him and two others, but does not saying anything about the violence he faced. It only says that he was “caught” by the villagers.

The Jharkhand police has been criticised for its handling of other mob violence and lynching cases as well. In Dumri district, for instance, cases have been filed against Adivasi victims of mob violence – while the perpetrators roam scot-free. The FIR and several discrepancies in the police’s report seem to suggest bias against the victims.

In Jharkhand’s Dumri, Police File Cases Against Adivasis Targeted by Lynch Mob

In April, one Adivasi man died and three severely injured after a mob beat them up for several hours on the suspicion of cow slaughter.

New Delhi: Two and half months after an Adivasi man in Jharkhand’s Jurmu village was lynched to death and three others severely injured by a mob from the neighbouring Jairagi village on the suspicion of cow slaughter, neither the police nor administration have anything to show by way of action taken except, incredibly, an FIR against the victims of the beating.

Hundreds of villagers from the districts of Gumla, Ranchi and Latehar on Monday attended a protest organised by the Kendriya Jan Sangharsh Samiti in front of the office of the Gumla deputy commissioner, against the alleged apathy of police in apprehending those responsible for the lynching on April 10 in Dumri block.

On that day, Prakash Lakda, a 50-year-old Adivasi man from Jurmu, had allegedly been requested by the owner of a dead ox to carve it. Prakash, along with a few others, set to work. In a while, nearly 40 people gathered at the site, all of them from Jairagi village. The Jairagi mob set themselves upon the Adivasi men, beating them for hours.

Also Read: India’s Legal System Should Recognise Lynching as a Hate Crime

The Wire previously reported the findings of a team of rights activists under the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha collective. The report found that the mob had chanted slogans like “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Bajrang Bali” while beating the Adivasis and forced them to chant the slogans too.

The report said all the four victims “were beaten all the way to Jairagi chowk, about a kilometre away from the place where the violence started”. After being beaten for around three hours, the victims were dumped by the perpetrators in front of the Dumri police station at around midnight.

Jharkhand villagers from three districts sat in protest and submitted a memorandum to the Gumla Deputy Commissioner. Photo: Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha

The report said instead of rushing the victims to hospital, the police made them wait in the cold for around four hours. While Prakash died, three others, Peter Kerketta, Belarius Minj and Janerius Minj were severely injured.

It is these three and the nearly 20 other Adivasi survivors of the lynching against whom cow slaughter charges have been drawn up. The victims have allegedly told police repeatedly that it was a dead ox they were carving. In rural Jharkhand, Adivasis consume meat of dead cows and oxen.

Also Read: Gau Raksha is Disrupting the Bovine Economy and Threatening Farmers’ Fields

The FIR and several discrepancies in the police’s report seem to overwhelmingly suggest bias against the victims.

A press statement issued by the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha noted that the Gumla district court has rejected the anticipatory bail filed by the victims for reasons that have much to do with administrative machinations. “The court order clarifies that police did not include the testimonies of the residents of Jurmu in the case diary. Even the testimony of the dead ox owner has not been recorded properly by the police. The facts have been recorded in a distorted manner in favour of the perpetrators of lynching,” the group writes in the statement.

Highlighted portions of the Gumla district court order show selective inclusion of villagers’ accounts by police. Photo: Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha

Neither the Mahasabha’s fact-finding report, nor a protest by villagers under the aegis of the Samiti on May 31 could trigger any action. Meanwhile, Jurmu villagers, who had been advised by the local administration to stop supplying mud to a brick kiln being operated by a Jairangi resident, have discovered that the advice has only cornered them further.

The brick kiln owner has allegedly warned Jurmu residents with the line, “khoon ki nadiyan baha denge” (rivers of blood will flow). Adivasi children from Jurmu are allegedly now being denied water from a public hand pump at Jairagi Chowk.

The villagers’ protests come on a day when news of the passing of 22-year-old Tabrez Ansari, who was attacked by a mob in Jharkhand, has taken social media by storm.

In a video of the attack which took place on June 18 in Dhatkidih village of the state’s Seraikela Kharsawan district, the mob which had suspected that he was a thief, can be heard forcing Ansari to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman”. He can be seen pleading with the mob to stop. The police’s report on this incident says villagers handed Ansari over to them but makes no mention of the fact that he had been attacked.

The India in Which Tabrez Ansari Died Continues to Live

We finally have a mantra that ensures unity in diversity: Jai Shri Ram.

My friends from Jharkhand sent me a video of a man – to be exact, a Muslim – being lynched. I avoided opening it. Then a message followed – that the man being beaten up on camera has now died. They were at the police station and were meeting senior officers later. I decided to watch the video.

It is a long clip: ten minutes and 49 seconds. In it, you see a man – a young man – tied to a pole. He is half bent. You can see that he is writhing in pain. His head is unsteady and his legs twisted. There is darkness around him, but there is also some light – from the mobiles being flashed at him, to keep him in focus. There are sounds. Human sounds. Abuses. People moving. You can see eyes. Again, human eyes.

A stick is swung in the air and then you see a hand catching it. The man cries out loud. You cannot see if he has been hit or has cried out anticipating a beating. The camera is brought closer to the face. The man is asked to look into the camera. The crowd is moving around, you can sense some excitement in the air. He is asked his name.

“Sonu,” he says.

The crowd is not satisfied.

“Full name?”

“Sonu Ansari,” he replies. He is swinging. There is blood on his face. Ansari? Sonu? Cannot be. “Sonu Ansari is an unlikely name,” the crowd opines. This strange combination of words raises suspicions. “Tell the full name, real name.”

“Tabrez Ansari,” he yields. “But I am called Sonu in my home, my neighbours call me Sonu.” He insists he is being truthful.

“Tell the name of your father.”

“He is dead.”

“The name of your mother?”

“She is also not alive.”

How can it be? Both parents dead. The crowd demands more from him. He tells them the name of his uncle. Another Ansari.

The beating continues. You hear cries, see the shaking of a dishevelled head and eyes wide open with fear.

“Stand erect,” someone from the crowd orders. The young man struggles to his feet. He keeps stumbling back down.

There are children in the crowd. And a burst of female laughter strikes at the darkness.

Blows follow. So do abuses.

The video moves slow. Then someone orders him: “Say Jai Shri Ram.”

“Jai Sri Ram,” Tabrez obeys.

He is asked to repeat it.

“Say Jai Hanuman.”

“Jai Hanuman,” Tabrez follows.

Noise, laughter, abuses, cries.

Tabrez slums back.

The video stops. Tabrez is alive until the end.

According to media reports, the police arrived at the scene and he was rescued. He was reportedly beaten after being caught red-handed by the villagers while stealing a motorbike. He was then taken into judicial custody for theft.

You start analysing the situation. The crowd must have been genuine in its suspicion of him being a thief. He was not being beaten for being ‘Tabrez Ansari’. An Arvind or Suman may have suffered the same fate in that situation.

Those beating him were ordinary people. It did not appear to be a premeditated attack. It must be spontaneous, even if it was an unfortunate response to the situation.

It happens, you tell yourself.

What is striking is the impunity in the air. As if the crowd is collecting evidence, recording it. The camera is repeatedly brought close to Tabrez’s face. The crowd puts his statement on record. It is an act of vigilantism.

Just four days after this collective assault, Tabrez died. Was the beating the cause of it? Or was this a natural death?

Do we call it a lynching?

Must I see a direct relationship between the desire of the crowd to hear a sacred invocation from an infidel to his death?

Does this video have any link to another video, shot at and emanating from Barpeta, a place far off from Dhatkidih of Saraikela, in which we see a crowd stopping an autorickshaw, assaulting the travellers and forcing them to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’?

They are different people, speaking different languages.

Then there is an unrelated piece of news of a Muslim cleric being hit by a car after refusing to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. This one in the capital city of India.

Three regions, three languages, one demand: “Say Jai Shri Ram.” Now we have the mantra which ensures unity in diversity.

As I wait for the report from my friends who were to go to the village, I read John Dayal.

“I don’t have the courage to put the last moments of a living human being on my Facebook. Particularly one being lynched for sporting a beard or some such visual sign which condemns him as not one of those who make up the mob that is killing him.

He was not killing a cow. He was not skinning a bull. He was not carrying the flesh of some animal. He was not forcibly or fraudulently converting anyone. He had not eloped with someone not of his caste. He was not friendly with some girl not of his religion. He was not a Pakistani agent. He was not a home grown terrorist.

None of them can be punished by a mob. The police has to arrest them and bring them before a court of law where, if found guilty, they will be sentenced to death, or a term in prison, and if innocent, will be set free. Happens in some civilised societies.

He had not even enjoyed fully the fruits of living in a secular democratic republic where a job, a house, a life without fear, a yearning for happiness and the aspirations to do better were all for the asking from the Constitution of India.

Killed for fun, was he? Kittens playing with a baby mouse till he died of fright?

Who will respond?

The President of the ruling political party/
Or the Home Minister of the Union of India?”

Why is it that I do not any longer demand an answer from anyone? Nor expect anything from anyone?

Why then am I writing these lines?

Apoorvanand teaches at Delhi University.