Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday said that his government was in the final stage of drafting a law against stone-pelting, ANI reported.
Singh added that it is “raj dharma [the duty of the ruler]” to act against criminals. “Stone pelting is not an ordinary violation of law and order that is why it requires an extraordinary law,” the chief minister said. “The draft is in its final stage and the law is being made.”
The Madhya Pradesh government’s announcement came less than two months after a communal clash took place in Chandan Khedi village in Bhopal.
The members of some Hindutva groups were holding a rally in the Muslim-dominated village to collect donations for the Ram temple construction. Around 200 people chanted Hanuman Chalisa and “Jai Shri Ram” slogans outside the mosque when prayers were being offered inside. This led to a heated exchange between Hindus and Muslims, and stone-pelting. Twenty-four people were detained after the clash.
Three days before the clash, an incident involving stone-pelting also took place in Ujjain’s Begum Bagh area. The police arrested 15 people in connection with the violence.
The Madhya Pradesh government’s law against stone pelting will reportedly include a provision for auctioning off the assets of the accused to recover damage caused to public property, according to ANI.
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