Mob lynching: Modi summoned various police officers before Alwar death, told them to 'keep India's social fabric intact'

New Delhi: The recent spate of lynchings in the country – two in Uttar Pradesh, and one each in Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tripura and Karnataka – many of which were fuelled by rumours circulated on social media channels, prompted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to summon police officers from various states and issue them a directive to “ensure they keep the social fabric intact, monitor the elements trying to disrupt peace and prevent violent incidents fuelled by social messaging services”. “Issues related to mob psychology and handling of different kind of mobs could be studied by the police personnel with the help of domain knowledge centres that exist outside police structures… focus on acquisition of helicopters and drones alone would not address emerging law and order related issues, for which, regular police patrolling and constabulary-based intelligence generation are key ingredients, that would act as important force multipliers, augmenting police visibility on the ground and generating a positive public image,” Modi had said. The advisory said: “The state governments to designate a senior police officer not below the rank of Superintendent of Police as nodal officer in each district and such nodal officer shall be assisted by one of the DSP rank officer for taking measures to prevent incidents of mob violence and lynching.” The states have been told to constitute a special task force to procure intelligence reports about the people who are likely to commit such crimes or who are involved in spreading hate speeches, provocative statements and fake news. It shall be duty of every police officer to cause a mob to disperse, by exercising his power under section 129 of CrPC, which in his opinion has a tendency to cause violence or wreck the havoc of lynching in the disguise of vigilantism or otherwise,” “The state governments shall prepare a lynching/mob violence victim compensation scheme in the light of the provisions of Section 375 A of CrPC within one month from the date of the Supreme Court judgment ie 17 July, 2018.