A fast-track court in Jharkhand’s Ramgarh awarded the life term on Wednesday to 11 of the 12 accused in a cow-connected lynch-mob murderous assault against a Muslim meat trader. One of those convicted is the BJP’s district official handling media operations. In the two years, from about September 2015 to around July 2017, that cow vigilante murders had a free rein, this is the first conviction and sentencing. It’s thus a matter of belated satisfaction that the legal system has at last delivered.
It must be seen if the convicted persons go in appeal with the support, open or tacit, of the multitude of local outfits spawned by Hindutva forces. In Rajasthan, they came out openly to back a man who killed a poor Muslim labourer with an axe and had the killing videographed.
Over 80 persons, most of them Muslims but also some from the dalit community among Hindus, who have traditionally done carcass removal in rural India, were done to death with the legal system not bothering to take cow vigilantism seriously.
When in June 2017, thousands of Indians rose in cities across the country to protest against cow vigilantism under the banner of “Not In My Name”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did take note, but his rebuke was lukewarm and appeared tailored to meeting the criticism mounted on such a wide scale.
The first vigilante murder was that of Akhlaq near Delhi. When one of the crime leaders later died, his body was draped in a party flag and honoured by a BJP minister, leading many to believe that cow vigilantism is a political ploy to polarise Hindu votes.
