India was recently convulsed with two horrifying cases of mob lynching that took place in Punjab over allegations of sacrilege. Angry mobs took law into their own hands and lynched two individuals to death on the suspicion of sacrilege, underscoring the abject state of law and order situation in Punjab.
The first incident of mob lynching linked to sacrilege took place inside the sanctum sanctorum of Darbar Sahib on Saturday evening when regular prayers were going on. CCTV footage showed that suddenly a man entered the sanctum sanctorum and hit the holy Granth Sahib with a Kirpan. Reportedly, he had picked up the golden Kirpan from the sanctum sanctorum of the Gurudwara itself, which was placed near the holy Sikh Scripture.
Soon after the incident, he was surrounded by people present at the temple. Initially, he was taken into custody by Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) staff and moved to the SGPC headquarters. But later his dead body was placed near the SGPC main gate, which suggests that he was beaten to death by the staff in the office.
After the man’s body was placed on the floor in front of the SGPC office, people gathered around him and celebrated instant justice. They chanted Sikh religious slogans to celebrate the murder.
And within 24 hours, another man in Punjab was killed over allegations of sacrilege. The incident pertained to a Gurdwara in Nizampur village in the Kapurthala district of Punjab. A man was caught at the Gurudwara for allegedly committing sacrilege. As per reports, the crowd at the Gurudwara where the youth was caught did not let the Police detain the accused. Later it was reported that the youth was lynched to death by the crowd.
A youth was brutally thrashed on charges of disrespecting the Nishan Sahib (Sikh flag) in Punjab. The Gurdwara caretaker Amarjit Singh had alleged that he saw a youth desecrating the Sikh flag during the wee hours of Sunday. At around 4 am, Singh had stepped out of the Gurdwara to do Nitnem (prayers). Reportedly, the youth tried to disrespect the Nishan Sahib and had taken refuge in the Gurdwara after the lights went out.
When the lights came back, the Gurdwara managers noticed the youth and tried to nab him. A video of the incident had gone viral on social media. He attempted to flee the scene but was caught. The youth was then brutally thrashed and killed.
Initially, the police said there was no sign of sacrilege in Punjab’s Kapurthala Gurudwara. However, later the police slapped charges of ‘hurting religious sentiments’ (IPC 295) on both the men killed in Amritsar and Kapurthala. No case is yet filed on those responsible for their deaths.
The politicians in Punjab fell over themselves to condemn sacrilege even though it was not confirmed, but none of them issued unequivocal denunciation against mobs for taking the law into its hand and murdering people. Instead, several of them protested against the repeated attempts at sacrilege and asked for strong measures to prevent the same.
Punjab’s steady slide into mobocracy and lawlessness
Significantly, Punjab’s descent into chaos and anarchy is not a recent phenomenon. For years, Punjab politicians have been humouring extremist tendencies in a bid to consolidate their hold and continue remaining in power. As a consequence, extremists and anarchists in Punjab have felt emboldened to persist with their unlawful activities, showing little regard for human lives, public properties, justice and the law of the land.
In 2021 alone there were six lynching cases linked to the sacrilege of Sikh Holy Books and symbols in Punjab. Reportedly there have been over 200 cases of sacrilege in the state since 2015. Around six have been killed so far that got reported. Out of these six, four were killed in the last year. In most of the cases that get reported, condemnation of sacrilege is in short order but there is a stoic silence over lynchings and murders carried out in its name. Almost no politician, influential leader or eminent personality displays the courage of condemning mob lynching.
Even as politicians are responsible for encouraging such vile acts with their silence, in other cases, they have been quite vociferous and unapologetic in stoking unrest. For instance, the farmer protests that started last year were widely supported and encouraged by the ruling Congress party in Punjab. In effect, the recent tumult in Punjab can be considered as the culmination of the violent farmers’ protests. The protests saw incidents of rapes, murder, riots, vandalism, arson as rabble-rousers participated in the protests under the pretext of farmers opposing the three farm laws. The protests also saw participation from Khalistani elements, who raised posters of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and chanted Khalistani slogans.
Foreign-based banned organisations such as Sikhs For Justice(SFJ), known for supporting and harbouring Khalistani sentiments, also threw their weight behind the farmer protests, possibly in a bid to sow discord in the Indian society and exploit the upheaval to gain sympathy from the Punjab masses. Besides offering emotional support to the protests, they also reportedly bankrolled the demonstrations and actively participated in causing disruption in the country.
The prevalence of Islamic radicalisation, brazen political murders in Kerala
While mobocracy in Punjab is under the spotlight, it is not the only state where lawlessness reigns supreme. Down in the south, Communist-ruled Kerala is another outpost of anarchy and disorder. Kerala, which is hailed by liberals as the most literate state in the country, is in the grips of political violence, a state where dissent is ruthlessly crushed and opposition to the ruling dispensation or asserting one’s identity can result in death.
Murders of RSS and BJP workers have become par for the course in the state of Kerala. The incidents of murders have become so tragically routine that it no longer evokes outrage and shock that killings must induce. On Sunday (December 19), a BJP leader was murdered at his residence by suspected SDPI workers. The incident took place in the Alappuzha district of Kerala.
On November 15, a 26-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker A Sanjith was hacked to death allegedly by the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) goons. SDPI is the political wing of the Islamist organisation Popular Front of India (PFI). The incident occurred at Ellapully in Palakkad district at 9:30 in the morning.
A Sanjith was a native of Elappully. He was going for his work on his motorcycle with his wife when he was brutally attacked by the SDPI members. Local reports suggest that the assailants, who came in a car, stopped his bike and attacked him in broad daylight in front of many people including his wife. Sanjith was then rushed to the hospital where he later succumbed to his injuries.
As the political murders of opponents continue unabated in Kerala, so has the Islamic radicalisation of the youth in the state. Recently, Kerala was named in a US report on terrorism, which said that many misguided and indoctrinated youth from southern Indian had joined ISIS to wage jihad against the infidels.
Political murders a distinctive feature of TMC government in West Bengal
Besides Punjab and Kerala, West Bengal is the third such Indian state that bears stark resemblance with the other two when it comes to law and order. Just as violence is rampant in Punjab and Kerala, it is the order of the day in West Bengal too. On Sunday, the Kolkata municipal polls saw various incidents of violence, including the hurling of crude bombs. Over 72 people were arrested for stoking unrest in the Bengal capital.
Earlier this year, West Bengal was also in the news for the unprecedented violence witnessed in the wake of assembly elections. The elections resulted in a thumping victory of Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress following which BJP and RSS supporters were hounded and attacked by goons that enjoyed the patronage of the ruling party.
Using violence as an instrument to subdue their political opponents has become a distinctive feature of the TMC rule in West Bengal. Ever since the Mamata Banerjee-led retained power in the state, the persecution of dissenters and opposition workers has only intensified. In an overwhelming number of such incidents, the victims have been BJP supporters and workers while the accused were said to be the supporters of the TMC party. More than 20 BJP workers lost their lives in the post-poll violence that ensued following the victory of the TMC party in the assembly elections.
There were reports that said women in West Bengal were raped, assaulted and, in some cases, even killed, just because they adhered to a different political ideology. Recently, a victim who was raped by the TMC goons in front of her father shared her harrowing ordeal with OpIndia. She narrated how she was attacked and sexually assaulted by her perpetrators associated with the TMC party. In the aftermath of the assembly election results, TMC goons wreaked havoc, attacking and plundering the houses of their opponents.
And the violence is not limited to election triumph alone. Even before the elections took place, political murders in West Bengal were a common occurrence. In the majority of the cases, the victim either belonged to the BJP-RSS fold or had vigorously criticised the TMC government for its ill-governance.
The Left and the opposition parties turn a blind eye to extra-judicial murders and mob lynching
The liberals, wokes, human rights activists often accuse the BJP governments of “rising intolerance” and “crushing dissent” but ironically, it is the opposition-led governments in Punjab, Kerala and West Bengal, that are responsible for presiding over states regarded as totems of lawlessness in India. On the expected lines, the champions of human rights and law and order did not bother to call out the opposition parties, lest it would undermine their propaganda against the central government, which is led by the BJP.
The violence, the rioting, the anarchy, have all become so endemic in these states that the violation of something as sacrosanct as the sanctity of life, in the form of rampant political murders and unbridled mob lynching, does not attract the kind of condemnation it deserves. Instead, the opportunist regimes in these states use such tragic incidents to their advantage— dehumanising victims and blaming them for “provoking” the mob—while they pander to the extremist sentiments and consolidate their hold over the power.
