The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a petition seeking measures to deal with cases of lynchings and mob violence against Muslims by cow vigilantes, PTI reported.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and JB Pardiwala issued notices seeking responses from the Centre and the police chiefs of Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana.
The petition has been filed by the National Federation of Indian Women, an organisation linked to the Communist Party of India. The group has sought directions to states to take action in consonance with a Supreme Court verdict from 2018.
In the 2018 case, the court had asked the Centre and states to set up special courts to conduct trials, form a compensatory scheme with provisions for interim relief for victims and their relatives as well as take disciplinary action beyond what is recommended in service rules for officers who do not deal with lynching incidents properly.
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Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the National Federation of Indian Women on Friday, urged the bench not to refer the matter to High Courts.
“If that happens, then I will have to go to various High Courts,” he said, according to PTI. “But what will the victims get? Compensation of two lakhs after ten years. This is despite the 2018 verdict in Tehseen Poonawala case regarding mob violence. What remedy do I have, where will I go?”
The National Federation of Indian Women, in its petition, has referred to two recent incidents in which Muslim men were lynched by mobs, Live Law reported.
In the first incident, a Muslim man named Mohammad Zahiruddin was lynched by a mob in Bihar’s Saran district in June on suspicion of transporting beef in his vehicle. After Zahiruddin’s car had broken down, a group of men helped him. However, they then found some bones and beat up Zahiruddin on suspicion of him carrying beef.
In the second incident, another Muslim man, Afaan Abdul Majid Ansari, was allegedly beaten to death by a mob of cow vigilantes in June on suspicion of smuggling beef in Maharashtra’s Nashik district. Ansari and his friend Nasir Hussain Shaikh were transporting 450 kilograms of meat when the crowd stopped them, spotted the meat in the car and attacked them.
“These incidents of lynching and mob violence occurring in just the last two months, are but a few examples,” the women’s body said in its petition.
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