A joint nationwide protest, under the banner of United Against Hate, was organised to demand justice in the recent lynching of Tabrez Ansari at Seraikela-Kharsawan area of Jharkhand. Protests were held simultaneously in more than 50 Indian cities in order to make India lynching-free. The protestors pledged not to allow the perpetrators to make India a lynchistan. Protests were planned under the hashtags #JusticeForTabrez and #IndiaAgainstLynchTerror.
Protestors from all walks of life gathered at Jantar Mantar in the national capital on June 26. Students, members of civil society, social and human rights activists, and leaders from various political parties, holding placards in their hands and shouting slogans, registered their protest and displayed their anger against deteriorating law and order situation each passing day and the government’s lackadaisical response to the lynching of Tabrez in particular and various other lynching incidents in various parts of the country in the past.
On June 18, Tabrez Ansari was brutally thrashed by a mob for alleged theft and a cell phone video shared to local channels showed that he was tied to a pole and was forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Jai Hanuman’ while he was pleading for mercy. As per media report, Ansari was caught by a mob of villagers who suspected he was a thief in the Seraikela-Kharsawan area of Jharkhand on June 18, said Avinash Kumar, a deputy superintendent of police in the area.
In the state of Jharkhand alone in the past three years, as per documentation by the civil society groups, at least 13 lynchings of minorities have taken place and no concrete measures have been taken against lynching either by the state government or by the Centre.
According to a Reuters report, a total of 63 cow vigilante attacks had occurred in India between 2010 and mid 2017, mostly since the Modi government came to power in 2014. In these attacks between 2010 and June 2017, “28 Indians – 24 of them Muslims – were killed and 124 injured”, states the Reuter’s report. According to another data by indiaspend.com (a data journalism site), 86 per cent of those dead in cow-related violence since 2010 are Muslim and 97 per cent of the attacks took place after 2014. Since 2014 till 2019, 122 incidents of cow-related violence took place in India.
On the same day it was believed that public outrage earlier against Jharkhand lynching prompted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make a statement in the parliament, he said, “The lynching in Jharkhand has pained me. It has saddened others too. But some people in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of the Indian parliament) are calling Jharkhand a hub of lynching. Is this fair? Why are they insulting a state? None of us has the right to insult the state of Jharkhand.”
In the wake of a series of mob lynching incidents in Jharkhand, former bureaucrat and noted social and human rights defender Harsh Mander has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Jharkhand High Court recently. In his petition, he has sought implementation of the July 2018 guidelines of the Supreme Court to check mob violence and mob lynching in the country.
Earlier in 2018, the Supreme Court of India had to issue a directive to Indian government to enact a law to stop the menace of the mob-lynching crisis. A Supreme Court bench, headed by the former Chief Justice Dipak Misra termed the mob lynching as “horrendous acts of mobocracy” and directed the Indian Parliament to bring a stern law to stop the crimes. Only Manipur brought the Manipur Protection from Mob Violence Ordinance 2018 within four months from the time top court had directed. Wasiq Nadeem, founder of United Against Hate, has demanded justice for the victims and strict implementation of Supreme Court guidelines to end mob lynching.
Reacting to the reported murder of Tabrez Ansari by a mob in the eastern state of Jharkhand in India, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Chair Tony Perkins issued the following statement: “We condemn in the strongest terms this brutal murder, in which the perpetrators reportedly forced Ansari to say Hindu chants as they beat him for hours. Ansari later died from the injuries he suffered due to this horrific attack. We call on the Indian government to take concrete actions that will prevent this kind of violence and intimidation by a thorough investigation of Ansari’s murder as well as the local police’s handling of the case. Lack of accountability will only encourage those who believe they can target religious minorities with impunity.”
Lok Sabha MP of Bahujan Samaj Party from Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, Kunwar Danish Ali, youth leaders and young social activists including Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Nadeem Khan, Welfare Party of India president Dr. SQR Ilyas, Rashtriya Ulama Council chief Maulana Amir Rashadi, AAP leader Dileep Pandey, social activists Kavita Krishnan and Prof. Apoorvanand, Muslim League’s Lok Sabha MP from Ponnani in Kerala, ET Basheer also addressed the protestors. Meanwhile, Okhla MLA, Amanullah Khan has announced to help the widow of Tabrez Khan with a cheque worth Rs. 5 Lakh and has also offered a job in Delhi Waqf Board including residential arrangements in Delhi.