Lynching ‘grave issue, condemn’

New Delhi, July 19

The Government on Thursday condemned the recent spate in mob lynchings and deaths, urging state governments to create deterrents against the trend and nab and punish the accused.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh responded to the issue in Zero Hour after Congress leader KC Venugopal flagged the concern, attacking ministers for “garlanding lynching accused” and targeting “Missionaries of Charity”. 

The Congress demanded a law against lynchings as directed by the Supreme Court and later walked out of the Lok Sabha, dissatisfied over no condemnation by Rajnath Singh of his ministerial colleague Jayant Sinha’s recent act of feting the lynching accused in Jharkhand.

While criticising the lynch crimes, Rajnath Singh blamed these on “unverified fake news” and said public order was a state subject and it was the responsibility of states to create deterrents against such crimes.

“Law and order is a state subject but that does not mean the Centre will be silent on this grave issue. We issued an advisory in 2016 and then this month. The Government has also met social media service providers asking them to install checks against fake news. These are very unfortunate incidents which I condemn. There is not a single case in which we did not speak to the CM concerned.,” he said after the Congress accused the BJP of “condoning the crimes” with their silence. — TNS