In our daily lives, rumours play a most significant and noteworthy role these days. With the passage of time, humans are getting too involved with the world of rumours.
No one even bothers to ascertain the authenticity and legitimacy of these rumours. Consequently, last week in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district, vicious rumours took the lives of two innocent, naive youth. The incident made me so disconsolate and miserable that it led me to accept the saying that humanity is indeed dead.
Abhijeet Nath and Nilotpal Das, two men from Guwahati. were visiting the scenic Kangthilangso waterfall in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district. They were lynched late Friday night by villagers who thought they were ‘child-lifters’.
Nilotpal was an avid musician and event manager based in Goa, while Abhijeet was an engineering graduate who ran a business in Guwahati. Their vehicle was stopped at Panjuri by a crowd, which pulled them out and thrashed them to death.
The video, which was spread on social networks, shows a mob hammering the two men with sticks, while others in the crowd kick them roughly. A voice from the gang asks the two innocent guys to explain what they were at doing Karbi Anglong – to which Nilotpal replies that they had come during the day. The clip ends as Nilotpal is dragged out of the frame, while Abhijit, also bloodied, is kicked around.
Thousands of people are protesting against what happened here. The protesters are demanding instant justice for Abhijeet and Nilotpal. So far, the police have arrested 16 people in the case. Most of the people arrested are local residents. Among them is Bhupendra Terang, the person who allegedly posted the fake message about the child-lifters on social media.
So, this is the way our society is ‘rising’. This is how our ‘humanity’ is growing, while innocents continue to die. Based on assumptions alone, two young lives were snatched brutally. Just spare a moment for their families, friends and people close to them, and imagine what they may be going through.
Nowadays, the lives of people seem to have become so cheap that anyone can kill anyone, anywhere, at any time. People judge issues devoutly along communal lines and so on, but lynching really is the worst thing to do.
We should hate the culprits – not the religion or community or the consign. People are not secure in their own places – their homes. Society and humanity is dying. Now, the government has the responsibility to penalise the criminals immediately so that people can continue to keep their faith in the administration. The punishment in this case should be an exemplary and noticeable one.
However, the lack of appropriate administration and government supervision, laws and rules is one of the key issues in our society right now. The laws against activities like mob lynching should be enforced by the government as soon as possible. Individual politics, racism, brutality and opportunism are a few aspects that make their presence felt when rumours are spread. Ultimately, the question arises as to what the government is doing to ensure our security in our own land.
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