New Delhi: A government panel headed by home secretary Rajiv Gauba to put in place a mechanism to check incidents of lynching, including forming a new law, has submitted its report to a Group of Ministers headed by home minister Rajnath Singh. The GoM will now deliberate on the report and give its final recommendations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The committee, which comprised Secretaries from some other Central Ministries also, was constituted following a series of incidents of lynching particularly the one reported from Alwar region in Rajasthan.
During its deliberations the committee, sources added, held discussions with a cross-section of people including legal experts, members of the civil society and security officials.
Sources said the committee was of the view that though there was no immediate need for formulating a new law to check incidents of lynching, appropriate changes could be made in the existing provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure to make them more stringent with approval from the Parliament.
The GoM is expected to meet later this week to discuss the report. Other members of the GoM include External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot.
As many as 40 people have been killed in incidents of lynching in nine different States over the past one year following which Home Ministry was forced to issues a series of advisories to States and Union Territories to check such cases. Even the Surpreme Court had also issued certain directives to check incidents of lynching.
In its advisory the Home Ministry had asked the States to appoint nodal officers in each district of the rank of Superintendent of Police, form special task force, gather intelligence and monitor social media contents to prevent lynching on suspicion of being child-lifters or cattle smugglers. Centre has also stated that these incidents were a matter of serious concern.
