JORHAT, Sept 25 - Noted RTI activists and lawyers Rintu Goswami and Gautam Bora have urged the State Government to enact a law against mob lynching in view of several such incidents occurring in Assam in recent times.
Speaking to mediapersons at the Jorhat Press Club yesterday, Goswami along with Bora, said that after the Teok Tea Estate incident on August 31 in which the garden doctor was brutally killed by a mob, the Government should at the earliest come up with an anti-lynching Act.
�It�s high-time the Government should bring a law against lynching in view of the rising cases of mob attacks across the State..... A law against lynching is need of the hour,� Goswami, who is also the president of Jorhat Bar Association, stated.
He said that the Speaker of the State Assembly Hitendra Nath Goswami, who is the Jorhat MLA, and the Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal should take the lead in framing a law against lynching.
He said that the Government should have enacted a law against lynching after the sensational lynching of two youths at Dokmoka in Karbi Anglong in June last year.
Goswami pointed out that neighbouring Manipur became the first State of the country to enact a law against lynching late last year, followed by Rajasthan Assembly recently passing an Act against lynching and West Bengal too passing an Act against lynching in the Assembly last month.
He said a tough law to deal with people involved in mob violence was very much required act as a deterrent.
Both Goswami and Bora stated that the law-and-order scenario in Jorhat district is deteriorating.
Goswami alleged that due to a police-criminal nexus the crime was increasing at a fast pace with a youth murdered in the heart of the town a few back ago for opposing Illicit liquor business.
Pointing out severe lapses on the part of the Jorhat police administration, Goswami said that a few months back an internal inquiry by the district police authorities detected serious act of fraud committed by 55 police officers (mostly Sub-Inspectors, Assistant Sub-Inspectors and a DSP) by giving false declarations about filing charge-sheets and final reports in 1164 cases during the period April 2016 to April 2019.
