Lynching of dacoits

EIGHT robbers were beaten to death in Araihazar of Narayanganj on Thursday while four more were severely wounded by mob beating in Purinda Bazaar. All of them were linked, allegedly, with the pre-dawn robbery of a rice shop in that area. And the people were alerted through the mike of the local mosque about the robbery.

It is a dangerous trend and the statistics will say why.  Between 2012 and 2014 more than 380 people were done to death by mobs. And this year alone up to September 104 people were killed in mob beating. It is dangerous too because it betrays the erosion of public faith and confidence in the agencies involved in the legal process. For example, in Purinda Bazaar this year alone there were 10 robberies and, reportedly, the police have done nothing about those so far. And if in this instance the police had not taken more than an hour to react then some lives could have been saved.
There is urgent need for the government to go into the whys and wherefores of lynching in this country. It does not require a social scientist to say that there is something very wrong in a society where people choose to dispense justice without taking recourse to the due process of law. The question one must ponder is whether it is a choice or a compulsion that lead people to do like what they did in Araihazar. But whatever may be the reason, nobody can take law in his own hands, and those who do must be held to account.