'Law will take its own course,' says MoS Reddy on Tabrez Ansari lynching case

New Delhi: Amid a furore over Jharkhand Police dropping the murder charge against the accused in the Tabrez Ansari lynching case, Union minister G Kishan Reddy on Thursday said the law will takes it own course.

He termed the incident "unfortunate" and said it was a criminal act. "I don't know what had happened in the court. I want that whatever had happened, whatever criminal act had happened, guilty should be punished," he told reporters on the sidelines of an event here. Reddy said he would talk to the state government on the matter.

Asked about the police scaling down the charges against the 13 accused from murder to capable homicide, he said "law will take its own course".

The Union minister of state for home dismissed the suggestion that alleged incidents of lynching have been taking place only in BJP ruled states. "There were similar incidents in West Bengal too. So many such cases have happened in the past, not all (have been) in the BJP ruled states," he said.

Reddy said even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that such incidents should not take place anywhere.

The 13 accused were arrested in connection with the death of 24-year-old Ansari, who was thrashed by a mob for alleged theft on June 17 in Jharkhand's Saraikela-Kharsawan district. Videos had gone viral showing Ansari being beaten up while tied to a pole and being forced to chant 'Jai Shri Ram'.

On Tuesday, police have dropped murder charges against all the 13 accused in the lynching case of Ansari. The chargesheet against two of the 13 arrested was filed in a local court and the investigation against the rest of the accused will soon be completed, a police official said.