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SC to states: Apprise us on steps taken to check mob lynching

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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked various state government­s to apprise it in six weeks on the action taken in incidents of mob lynching and cow vigilantis­m.

A bench of Justices BR Gavai, Aravind Kumar and Sandeep Mehta posted for hearing after six weeks a plea filed by a women’s organisati­on seeking directions to states to take immediate action in consonance with a 2018 verdict of the apex court to effectivel­y deal with incidents of lynching and mob violence against Muslims by cow vigilantes.

“We find that most of the states have not filed their reply affidavits to the writ petition giving instances of mob lynching. It was expected of the states to at least respond to what action has been taken in such cases. We grant six weeks’ time to the states who have not filed their replies and also give details of steps taken by them in such cases,” the bench ordered.

The top court was hearing a plea filed by the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW), an organisati­on linked to the Communist Party of India in which notices were issued last year to the Centre and the DGPs of Maharashtr­a, Orissa, Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana seeking their responses to the plea.

During the hearing, advocate Nizam Pasha, appearing for the petitioner organisati­on, said that in Madhya Pradesh there was an incident of alleged mob-lynching but the FIR was registered for cow slaughter against the victims. Pasha submitted, “If the state is to deny the incident of mob lynching, then how can 2018 verdict in Tehseen Poonawalla case will be followed.”

SC questioned the counsel appearing for the Madhya Pradesh government, as how FIR for cow slaughter was registered without chemical analysis of the meat and why no FIR was registered against those involved in the scuffle.

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