New Delhi: The Supreme Court has made its stance clear with regards to Mob killings and violence by vigilante groups by saying that such incidents can’t be allowed and urged the parliament to legislate an independent and separate law against lynching crimes. But the ruling BJP opines that need for any such law is out of the question.

“There is already a law and no such requirement for a separate law,” top BJP sources said.

Due to the day to day increase in mob lynching incidents over social media, especially on WhatsApp, the Apex Court made it clear that the legislature should consider enacting a new penal provision to curb mob violence and punish the offenders.

Citizens have no right to take the law into their hands and the governments need to curb such incident by bringing a stringent law against mob lynching, the bench said on Tuesday. “In case of fear and anarchy, the state has to act positively,” said Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.

He also called the incidents of mob lynching “horrendous acts of mobocracy” and said the incidence has to be curbed by using with iron hands.

The second day of the ongoing Monsoon session in the parliament gave some hints about the future of such a law by the top court.

Commenting over the issue of mob killings, Home Minister Rajnath Singh asserted that such lynchings are sort of a new thing but were witnessed in the past too. “However, whoever is killed, it is a worry for all governments,” Mr. Singh said in the parliament.

The home minister put the responsibility of curbing such incidents on the state governments and added, “Despite law and order being a state subject, the center cannot keep quiet. The center has issued advisories.”

The BJP minister has time and again asserted that it is the responsibility of the state to curb all such type of incidents and “…if they ask for help we can give, but the Constitution does not permit us to directly intervene in it,” he said.

“I have spoken to all chief ministers of the state where incidents of lynching were reported,” he said.

He also put up the blame on fake news and false rumors over the social media with regards to the issue. He further said that the central government has already asked several social media platforms to find out solutions in their systems to control the problem.

However, the opposition seemed to be not agreeing with the home minister’s way of approach for the problem and members from the Congress party staged a walkout. Earlier to that, they also raised slogans against Union Minister Jayant Sinha for felicitating men convicted of killing a meat trader in Jharkhand.

Since past few months, there have more than two dozen reports of mob lynching resulting from false rumors about child kidnappers across the country. The main culprit supporting the rumors was the messaging platform, WhatsApp. The app has got more than 200 million users in the country.

You May Also Read: Turkey Ends Two Year Old Emergency Rule, Seeks To Retain Some Of Its Powers