The National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to the Assam government asking why a man assaulted almost a year ago for selling beef should not be paid ₹1 lakh as compensation.
The panel instructed the State’s Chief Secretary to reply within six weeks from March 12. It gave a similar deadline to the State’s Director General of Police to submit an action-taken report against the policemen found guilty of letting the assault happen.
Some youths had assaulted 68-year-old Shaukat Ali for selling beef in his restaurant at a weekly market in northeastern Assam’s Biswanath Chariali town. There were allegations that the police were mute spectators when the youths assaulted him on April 7, 2019.
MLA complaint
The NHRC had taken up the case after Congress MLA and leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Debabrata Saikia lodged a complaint on April 12, 2019, against the assault and the indifference of the police to pursue the case even after an FIR was registered.
Citing a report of the Biswanath district magistrate on September 14, 2019, the NHRC said some local unemployed youths were collecting tax from the vendors and shopkeepers in the market that had not been leased out for three consecutive financial years.
“The market is in Hindu-inhabited area and selling of beef hurts the religious sentiments of the local people and some youth thus insulted and disgraced Shaukat Ali,” the NHRC said.
The commission concluded that the youths were allowed to collect professional tax illegally while the assault on Mr. Ali violated the provisions of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993. It accordingly prescribed a compensation of ₹1 lakh to the victim of what it categorised as mob lynching and issued the show-cause notice to the State’s Chief Secretary.
