Social organisations condemn lynching of undertrials in Jaintia Hills

Shillong, Sep 12: The CSWO and the Thma U Rangli Juki (TUR) have condemned the lynching of four under-trial prisoners, who were among the six escapees, in Jaintia Hills.

In a statement issued on Monday, Agnes Kharshiing, president of CSWO, said, “The report of a criminal case being registered against five staff working in the Jowai District Jail indicates that the law enforcers themselves become lawbreakers – though this is not uncommon. But the crux of the issue is that the shady and suspicious manner in which the six prisoners escaped, only to die in the hands of an angry and unruly mob (four out of six escapees), indicates that something is not right in our system that is infested by power-hungry individuals with vested interests.”

Kharshiing said in the presence of the law of the land, lynching should not be promoted in the state.

“The CSWO requests people to shun all form of violence. No one can take law in their hands and lynching cannot be accepted in the civil society,” she added.

TUR, in its statement, not only condemned the lynching but also the killing of reformed HNLC leader Cherishsterfield Thangkhiew.

“The state-sponsored murder of Bah Cherishterfield Thangkhiew is now sought to be swept under the carpet by the government through a wishy-washy inquiry. The inquiry fails to call the killing fake calling into question the intent of the inquiry,” the TUR statement read.

“By normalising state terror, the government is creating a culture of impunity. If state itself becomes the lawbreaker and violator of human rights, it loses its moral standing. This creates a situation in which things like mob lynching (like that of the escaped convicts in Jaintia Hills) are normalised,” TUR said and demanded action against the police personnel involved in the fake encounter of Thangkhiew, the prison officials who oversaw the jail break and the people involved in the lynching.