Lynchings Happen Everywhere, Wrong to Isolate Rajasthan: CM Raje

Raje said these lynchings had more to do with “population explosion” and the frustration due to the lack of jobs.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje.

(Photo: Reuters)

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who has been in the eye of a storm due to her government's inaction over the cases of lynching in the state, has claimed that such incidents happen all over the world, and to cite just Rajasthan's example was wrong.

In an interview to TV channel CNN-News18, Raje said the frustration due to lack of jobs forces people to take the law into their own hands. Dismissing the problem of law and order in the state, she said: "If such an incident happens at 12 in the night in some remote part of the state, I would have to be God Lord to know where and what was happening."

Raje said she hoped that the “strong action” her government took in the Alwar lynching case will serve as a warning, thereby stemming such incidents in future.

The Rajasthan chief minister, however, also said these lynchings had more to do with "population explosion" and the frustration due to the lack of jobs etc.

Her statement comes just days after a cattle trader Akbar Khan was lynched by an angry mob in Rajasthan's Alwar district on the suspicion that he was smuggling cattle. Two days later, reports of police's complacency, preference to seized cows over the victim, and alleged violence on Khan surfaced.

Naval Kishore Sharma, who works for Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP)’s Gau Raksha cell in Ramgarh, told Deccan Herald that Khan was beaten up by the police.

"The police took Akbar to the police station where some of them started thrashing him in the presence of assistant sub-inspector Mohan Singh," he said.

Khan's lynching is not a one-off incident to have occurred in the state. Another cattle trader, Pehlu Khan, was brutally thrashed in 2017 on the same suspicion. He succumbed to his injuries a few days later.