Mob justice

While the Karachi operation may have helped in curbing crime in the city, it has clearly not eliminated the occurrence of petty crime. Added to this is the tendency of citizens to take the law into their own hands, sometimes with fatal consequences. A mob in Karachi recently charged after a suspected robber and resorted to burning him alive when he allegedly robbed a dry-fruit store and a few fruit vendors, with three accomplices, who escaped. The police arrived only after the suspect was dead. Such cases of vigilante ‘justice’ are not new to Karachi, indeed to the country.

There might be two explanations for the mass psychology that prompts angry men to come together and beat the life out of a suspect. Perhaps, because this nation has been so used to brutality whereby people are mistreated and abused by those more powerful than them, that we, as a people, like to exert power and prowess over others when we can — that is how, sadly, we have been conditioned. A second explanation, though in no way excusing the actions of the mob, is that citizens lack trust in our law-enforcement bodies, which encourages their paranoia and ‘law of the jungle’-like response. Indeed, many citizens may have experiences of approaching the police for help, and being refused service, or worse, subjected to harassment. Cases drag on in our courts for years, only serving to hurt the cause of justice. But that is the system we have to improve instead of taking matters into our own hands. Taking the law into one’s own hands only leads to chaos and anarchy. We have seen such brutality before in cases of alleged blasphemy, with religious minorities especially bearing the brunt of vigilante ‘justice’. There was also the case of the two innocent brothers from Sialkot, who were lynched to death by an angry mob, while members of law-enforcement agencies disgracefully looked on silently. This tide of mob justice needs to be stemmed. The law-enforcement apparatus, the authorities and society as a whole need to investigate this phenomenon and put an end to it.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st,  2015.

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