LYNCHING is an extrajudicial punishment by an informal group. It is most often informally executed by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate a group. Lynching has often been a means for a dominant group to suppress challengers. However, it has also resulted from long-held prejudices and practices of discrimination that have conditioned societies to accept this type of violence as normal practices of popular justice. Though racial oppression in the United States has given lynching its current familiar face, execution by mob justice is not exclusive to North America, but it is also found around the world as vigilantes move to punish people behaving outside of commonly acceptable boundaries.
The number of deaths from lynching is on the rise in our country and it is an indication of loss of trust in law and order by common people. The common people have a notion that if they hand over the criminals to the law enforcing agencies, the criminals will be made free soon. Such popular perception does not help maintain law and order in society. We have seen innocent people die in lynching incidents. I clearly remember that in 2011 at Aminbazar, Savar six students were beaten to death mercilessly as they were mistaken for being robbers on the night of holy Shab-e-Barat and the incident pained and shocked society. No one has the right to kill someone and our constitution guarantees everyone an equal opportunity for all in the court of law. Everyone has a right to seek justice in the court of law and the court will punish a person found guilty in the eye of law. It is high time we stopped this barbarism of mob beating and brought law and order back in our society.
Masud Rana
Dhanmondi, Dhaka
- Thursday, 25 April 2024 |
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