The Supreme Court has made the Centre and the state governments accountable for mob violence and lynching and asked them to take steps to curb and stop dissemination of irresponsible and explosive messages and videos on social media platforms which incite such incidents.
Passing a slew of directions to provide “preventive, remedial and punitive measures”, the top court asked the state governments to designate a senior police officer, not below the rank of Superintendent of Police, as nodal officer in each district, media reports said.
It reportedly said such nodal officers should be assisted by a DSP rank officer in the district for taking measures to prevent incidents of mob violence and lynching.
They shall constitute a Special Task Force so as 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, a PTI report quoted the court as saying.
“The states shall forthwith identify Districts, Sub-Divisions and/or Villages where instances of lynching and mob violence have been reported in the recent past, say in the last five years. The process of identification should be done within a period of three weeks from the date of this judgment, as such time period is sufficient to get the task done in today’s fast world of data collection.
“The Secretary, Home Department of the concerned States shall issue directives/ advisories to the Nodal Officers of the concerned districts for ensuring that the Officer In-charge of the Police Stations of the identified areas are extra cautious if any instance of mob violence within their jurisdiction comes to their notice,” the 45-page verdict reportedly said.
The court said the nodal officer should hold regular meetings, at least once a month, with the local intelligence units in the district along with all station house officers to identify the existence of the tendencies of vigilantism and mob violence.
“The Director General of Police/the Secretary, Home Department of the concerned States shall take regular review meetings (at least once a quarter) with all the Nodal Officers and State Police Intelligence heads. The Nodal Officers shall bring to the notice of the DGP any inter-district co-ordination issues for devising a strategy to tackle lynching and mob violence related issues at the State level,” the bench was quoted as saying.