The Assam Human Rights Commission has said that letting cases of lynching, even of criminals, go unpunished would send the wrong signal.
The panel made this observation while issuing an order to the Superintendent of Police of southern Assam’s Karimganj district to submit the present status of the investigation into the lynching of three Bangladeshi nationals on July 18, 2020.
The AHRC had taken up the case on a complaint by Baglekar Akash Kumar, a law student of Hyderabad’s Osmania University two days after the incident. On September 22, the AHRC had asked the district police chief to submit by October 25 the status of the investigation report. The report was not received.
Setting November 29 as the new deadline, the AHRC said: “We appreciate the difficulties faced by the police in identifying or arresting the culprits involved in lynching cases. Lynching in any form must not be permitted in an ordinary society like us as otherwise, the very existence of the rule of law will be in danger.”
