Social malais: ‘Mob beatings reflect public’s lack of trust in justice system’

LAHORE: At least 30 incidents have been reported in the city from July 15 onwards of mobs taking the law into their own hands and beating up people on suspicion that they were involved in kidnapping children.

On August 14, a family in Shalimar had beaten up a woman on suspicion that the 10-year-old walking with her was a kidnapped child. Police had said that she told the family that the child was her son but they refused to listen to her saying that their complexions did not match.

On August 12, a woman caught breaking into a house in Green Town was given a severe beating by a mob that had gathered at the scene. Both her legs were broken in the voilence.

Last week, a mob had thrashed a man in Baghbanpura suspecting him to be involved in child kidnappings. In his statement to the police, the man said he was on his way to his girlfriend’s house to deliver a cell phone charger. In another incident, a man walking with his son was beaten up by a mob.

Such incidents show that mistrust of the criminal justice system is widespread in the public, says Punjab University’s professor Zikriya Zakir.

He says the public has not lost trust in the system overnight. “It is a product of decades of bad experiences with the police and the courts,” he says.

Zakir says he has not come across any example of similar incidents in developed countries.

He says in a recent incident at a school in Germany a teacher was beaten up by four students who belonged to Syrian refugee families. The school administration had called police and handed the students into their custody instead of taking the law into their own hands.

Zakir says people take the law into their own hands when they are convinced that those responsible for enforcing the law are not doing their jobs properly. “We frequently come across incidents where thieves or robbers are caught and given a thrashing by mobs,” he says. This happens because people believe that criminals won’t be made to face any consequences for their actions if they are handed over to the police.

He says mob beatings also have other causes. “Such incidents are an expression of the deeply entrenched frustration among the public,” he says. Participation in a collective act of lynching those caught on suspicion enables people to feel proud and important, he says. “The experience gives the participants a sense of empowerment. They can then believe that they have stood up and preserved values of the society,” he says.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2016.