Hasan Akram
New Delhi: as the part of monthly lecture series named
Guftgu being organised at Sayyedain Manzil near Jamia,
Senior advocate of Supreme Court Sanjay Hegde got an
opportunity to speak about newly drafted bill named
MASUKA (Manav Suraksha Kanoon). In the days of rising mob
violence in the country, he focuses on the need of a separate
anti-lynching law. Now cases of lynching are registered under
sections of murder and attempt to murder etc. MASUKA was
released by National Campaign against Mob-Lynching which
Sanjay Hedge is associated with. Kanhayya kumara, Tahseen
poonawala, Pro. Nivedita, Pro. Apoorvanand and Pro. Manoj
Jha are among its core members.
In his lecture the senior advocate said that those who
commit lynching are not afraid of laws. They make video of
violence and upload it on social media, consider it as an act
of bravery. He said, incidents of lynching used to happen in
past too. For example, if a thief was caught, he was beaten
publicly and sometime it resulted in his death but those
incidents were not inspired by communal sentiment and
provocative emotions like today. Today, violence is taking
place due to ideological and cultural differences. A mob
winds up a man/group of human beings only because
he/they do not believe in their ideology while he/they had
not harmed them anyway.
Inside the drafted bill
Mr. Hedge pointed out some important details related
to insides of the bill. He told, lynching, murder etc have been
defined. Protection for witnesses and punishment for culprits
were addressed in it. Instant compensation for the victim is
also a part of this bill.
Hurdles to get it passed
At the end of his lecture, Mr. Hedge strongly said that
since 70s he has seen Muslim children fearing to walk on
roads of Mumbai, if they have wore kurta Pajama and now
he does not want to see this fear in hearts of the next
generation. ”Scare will have to go’’ these were last words of
his speech. But as history tells, the anti-lynching law has no
record of implementation at a right time. Even in USA it could
not be implemented when lynching was taking place at large
scale and it was needed most at that time. MASUKA, the
drafted bill is waiting for political representatives to discuss it
in the parliament and make it a law.