90,000 Indians Lynch Rape Suspect

[DonViejo]

Source: TDB/Hindustani Times

A mob of 90,000 in the Indian state of Nagaland broke into a jail and lynched a suspected rapist in public on Thursday night. Syed Farid Khan, a Muslim immigrant from neighboring Bangladesh, was accused of rape by a girl last week. The massive crowd broke into the jail, and stripped and beat him before tying his body to a motorcycle and dragging it 7 kilometers to a clock tower, where he was strung up for display. The crowd also destroyed Muslims’ houses and shops in town.

Read it at Hindustan Times

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Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/03/06/90-000-indians-lynch-rape-suspect.html

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[dhol82]

1. Wonder if he was really guilty?

Would be a shame if this was just mob rule on somebody innocent.

[SpankMe]

5. It would still be a shame, even if he was guilty.

A proper trial and penalty imposed by the state, based on the rule of law, followed by the firm but dignified carrying out of a sentence is what is called for.

Mob rule even on the guilty is wrong.

[dhol82]

19. True enough

I was just responding to the thought that the guy had not been convicted of anything and the mob just went nuts. Scary shit.

[brooklynite]

2. How does a mob of 90,000 do anything?

The ten people in the FRONT of the mob might...

[Delphinus]

9. Thanks -

that's what I was thinking. I can't wrap my brain around that.

[xocet]

17. Excellent point. n/t

[yuiyoshida]

3. 90,000 is huge...

I have been to baseball games where the stadium held 50,000. When PSY had a concert in South Korea there were 80,000 fans.. and that was a huge crowd. Ya just can't imagine 90K people breaking into a Jail to grab some one.. seriously!

this was 80K here at Psy's concert!

[Grins]

4. Considering the source...

Considering the source is the Hindustan Times, I'm guessing it was 90,000 Hindus (not "Indians&quot who murdered a migrant Muslim. Now there's a religious conflict with some real history!

[mopinko]

6. yup yup.

exactly what i saw when i looked at the story.

[elias49]

7. Wow! Overkill much? nt

[SoapBox]

8. Guilty until proven innocent.

I thought it should be the other way around.

Add to it religious fanatics.

[McCamy Taylor]

10. So much for much touted Indian tolerance.

[samsingh]

11. indian tolerance? no more than any where else.

[JI7]

12. this is more about religion than anything else

If the suspect was not a muslim they probably wouldn't care

[Comrade Grumpy]

13. "The crowd also destroyed Muslims’ houses and shops in town."

So...yep.

[Kelvin Mace]

14. Ummm, 90,000?

Who counted?

[Jack Rabbit]

15. My, my, my, where was Prime Minister Modi?

From the Hindustan Times articles linked in the OP:

The protests continued on Thursday with members of several organisations led by Naga Students’ Federation marching to the Dimapur Municipal Council office, seeking cancellation of trade license to all Bengali-speaking Muslims.

The mob needn't worry. Modi is the Prime Minister.

After an investigation into the matter, a government panel will conclude he didn't do anything. And that will be the end of it, because he didn't do anything.

Like uphold the rule of law or protect an accused Muslim from an angry mob of racists and sectarian bigots.

[Comrade Grumpy]

16. Probably egging them on, like back in the good old days.

[Jack Rabbit]

21. Perhaps

What do you suppose a neoliberal like Modi would have to say about cancelling business licenses held by a targeted class of people?

One would think he would regard that just awful, unless the targeted class of people are targeted by him and perhaps there are friendly foreign investors or some of the PM's cronies ready to make a killing in the scrap metal business.

[PersonNumber503602]

18. A former coworker of mine from Indian would tell me about community vigilantism

He said many feel like they cannot trust their justice system because of the corruption, so stuff like this happens every so often. I picked up a sense of nostalgia from him when he was talking about it. He said he disliked the way the US and Canada (he lived in Canada for a few years) didn't have the same sense of community and no one cared about the plight of their neighbors. Basically said we're mostly self-absorbed. Can't say he's wrong about that, but I think we can work on that without murdering someone who was just accused of a crime. We had some interesting conversations. It was an interesting look into the mindset of some from there. I will also state that I had similar conversations with another Indian and he really didn't have anything nice to say about that stuff.

[freshwest]

20. Getting 90K people to do *anything* sounds media induced. Vigilantism is on the rise world wide as

civil society collapses and governments that were there to enforce equality and law (never perfectly, but better than having mob rule) fall under the force of ancient solutions.

We've had mob rule in this country for centuries against black people that was only prevented by strong government. Now the same forces that comprised mobs in the past are at work again.

OTOH, I wonder if the level of violence in India with massive crowds is due to an increasingly intense competition for land and resources. The people are being forced to live in closer proximity whereas in the past they may not have sought power through rape or in the streets like this. They might have had other things to do or just walked away. Now they have no place to get away from each other and take time to reflect on their lives and actions.

That is what draws many to places they call 'the frontier' or 'wide open spaces' but often created by displacing others. I'm not sure what the solution for India will be, or if there will ever be one.

India has been in turmoil for far longer than we have existed. I wonder if it has ever had an era of 'peace' that was not of the forced kind that bred less peace later.

[Takashi Zara]

23. I am sure that PM Modi will be furious...

...that the angry mob did not ask him to personally lead the pogrom. Those are his thing, and to leave him out is just unacceptable.

[Calista241]

24. Of those 90k people, 89.9k of them had no fucking idea what was going on. n/t