Mob justice

Violence in Pakistani society can only be vanquished when the masses are empowered to shape their destiny

Incidents of mob justice, previously uncommon in Pakistan, are now rampant across the country. Recently, Express News footage showed four alleged robbers being mercilessly beaten to death by a frenzied mob in Karachi and a policeman ruthlessly being clubbed to death by a gang of ruffians in Sargodha.

The frequency of mob justice incidents in Pakistan is symptomatic of the many social ills that plague our society today. Mob justice, a cruel and inhuman form of public punishment for wrongdoers occurs in societies where a despotic and corrupt political and bureaucratic system of governance exists. Where bad governance or no governance is the order of the day. In societies where a weak, corrupt and inefficient system of law enforcement exists; accompanied by a cumbersome, costly and time-consuming justice system that repeatedly fails to redress public grievances and in societies where hope for redressal of public grievances are in vain.

Mob justice, in essence, is an aberration of the law as it deprives victims of their fundamental human rights — the ‘right to life’ and the ‘right to a fair trial’. But then incidents of mob justice can also be interpreted as public outcry — to jolt people at the helm of affairs from their slumber — to lend a sympathetic ear and alleviate public concerns of grinding poverty, high inflation, lack of education and healthcare, rising unemployment and a host of other issues that provoke the masses into taking the law in their hands.

Surely, mob justice is no remedy for our many social ills. The cure lies in a transparent democratic set-up and a free and fair electoral process that empowers the masses at grassroots level to voice concerns and address issues of social inequality and social injustice and to work for the uplift and betterment of the less fortunate in society.

Violence in Pakistani society can thus only be vanquished when the masses are empowered to shape their destiny and are allowed to put the nation on track to progress. This is the only way to escape our current predicament. If these visible, yet unnoticed acts of mob justice are not done with they will soon exact a toll on our society with far-reaching consequences for all.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2014.