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Ruling out a separate law to deal with increasing incidents of mob lynching across the country, the Centre urged the States to deal with the menace sternly.
Replying to a two-day debate on the ‘Situation arising out of the reported increase in the incidents of lynching and atrocities on minorities and Dalits across the country’ in the Rajya Sabha, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said existing laws have provisions to deal with such crimes and advised the States to ask its officers to take stern steps against such the lynching mobs.
He said neither the Centre nor the BJP supports such violent mobs. “The government’s stand is clear. Nobody is allowed to take law into their own hands. There is no rationalisation, no arguments of sentiments being hurt can be an explanation for this. And, the government is absolutely committed,” he said in the Upper House. “There should be no sympathy in such cases,” Jaitley said.
He also blamed the organisers of beef festivals and those indulging in public slaughtering in Kerala, and said they were guilty of creating the same problems that the lynching mobs did. He criticised the Opposition’s “selective morality and selective call of conscience”. He said the whole House condemned the killings in one voice and urged that the issue not be politicised. He said that the worship of the cow should not be a reason for violence, and that arrests had happened on every such incident. He also reminded the Opposition of Article 48, which calls for steps to protect cattle, and also of various State laws that ban cow slaughtering.
Opposition MPs retorted saying no one was against the law, but the issue under discussion pertained to the increased incidents of mob lynching in the name of cows.
Earlier, during the debate, DMK member TKS Elangovan asked the Centre if it had taken any decision to privatise the police establishment too. He said lack of action against such criminals, supported by the BJP, creates an atmosphere of tension. VV Reddy of the YSR Congress demanded that a law be enacted to deal with such mobs.
Congress leader and former minister Kapil Sibal said the maximum murders on the issue happened in 2017. He added that the ban on cattle trade had negatively impacted leather industry and other associated industries.
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