Mob violence: A great threat to nation

The term, 'mob' is derived from the Latin mobile vulgus meaning the fickle commoners and refers to the inconstancy of the crowd. A mob has now become a politicised usage. It essentially denotes a crowd that is seen as being out of control or one waiting for a trigger to set it off. Our heart cries out for the six students and their families who were bludgeoned to death by a mob of several hundred villagers in Aminbazar on the outskirts of the capital city on the day of the Shab-e-Barat. The reason behind the attack, which also left another person injured, remains unclear. But locals and police claimed the youths were robbers. As far as we know from reports in both print and electronic media, the students were brilliant and most of them came from well-to-do families though Keblarchar where the mob-beating took place is known as a hot-spot for drug trade. But the despicable act committed by those culprits is horrendous for us. The mob in that locality enjoyed and added fuel to the fire by inciting those culprits. This is even more abominable. We can very well imagine the utter pain among the members of the families of the deceased right now. No worldly compensation will compensate for that. Mob violence has been a common phenomenon throughout the history of humanity, from ancient Greece and Rome, to modern Europe and the Americas, communal violence in Asia and political violence in Africa and the Middle East. The Paris violence in October 2005 in which 1,500 vehicles, several businesses and a school were burnt, many people injured and at least one person died, was sparked by the death of two Muslim teenagers who were electrocuted, while allegedly trying to hide in an electricity substation in a Paris suburb characterised by high rates of poverty and unemployment after being chased by policemen. While the boys' deaths acted as a trigger for the violence, the underlying cause was identified by scholars, to be the relative economic deprivation and hopelessness that many Muslim immigrants suffer in such ghettoised suburbs. At the end of last year, a mob beat two people to death at the city's Dakkhin Keraniganj on suspicion that they were robbers. Few months ago, Dhaka University students beat to death a 22-year-old, Ehtesham Al Ziad, a student of Bangladesh Medical College, suspected of stealing cellular phone handsets from the university's Sir Salimullah Hall. In October 2006, everyone watched with horror the beating to death of a political activist (suspected to be of Jamaat-e-Islami) aired live on television, followed by the scenes of the killers dancing around the dead body. These prove how the incidents of lynching and the deaths thereby are on the rise in the country. Mass beating is causing deaths every now and then. According to a half-yearly report of Ain O Salish Kendra, a non-governmental organisation that provides legal support, 72 deaths occurred in mob beatings across the country, while another rights organisation, Odhikar, found the number to be 75 based on reports published in 12 national dailies between January and June this year. According to Odhikar, 119 people were killed in mob beating from January to September in 2010. These incidents are increasing day by day. The repeated incidents of lynching and their ferocity are increasingly causing concern among lawyers, psychologists and sociologists who believe people are taking the law into their own hands because their confidence in the law enforcement agencies and justice delivery system is waning fast. Mob violence is chaotic, confusing and a crime. It is not something someone alone and in his or her right mind would carry out. Violence only begets more violence, and is not only pointless, but it actually extracts a price from society. A mob develops a mind of its own with individuals becoming highly vulnerable and susceptible to the will of the collective group. Crowds are essentially contagious, and if one person gets angry, excited or violent, others quickly pick up on these emotions or actions. An individual says "Catch him," "Beat him," and immediately the individual behaviour becomes mob behaviour. Incident of killing in mass beatings occurs almost everyday reportedly due to the failure of the police to contain crime. But the fact remains that whatever is the reason or ploy, killing anybody in mass beating or lynching is illegal and a grievous crime. This goes parallel with the extra-judicial killings carried out by RAB and police in the name of 'cross-fire,' 'gun-fights' or 'shoot outs.' In the case of killing by lynching it can be said that even if the victims are really criminals nobody has the right to kill them in this way without any legal process. Criminals should be punished, but that punishment should be awarded through the process of law by a court. Catching somebody on the street on the allegation of a crime and lynching himher to death on the spot is illegal, brutal and unwarranted in a civilised society. So, the government should do everything necessary to contain crimes and nab the criminals through legal ways, but it should ensure that none is killed by law enforcers or public without legal process. The killings by lynching as well as all extra-judicial killings must be stopped immediately. We should stress on ethics and moral norms among our citizens. (The writer is election officer in Chhatak, and can be reached at email: alamgir01912@yahoo.com)