Assam: Debashish Gogoi lynching incident brings out old faultlines

On 29th May, Debashish Gogoi got attacked by an angry mob near a tea garden in Mariani, Jorhat, Assam. In that furor, Gogoi lost his life.

Following the incident, people gathered in front of the Debarapar Police station demanding arrests for the perpetrators involved. The local 'jatiyabadi' (regional) organisations too joined in.

The turn of events

As per local sources contacted by Inside Northeast, a bunch of guys went to Porbot. While going there they hit a woman slightly. Then in Porbot, they drank and got inebriated. While coming back, some of the villagers were waiting to confront them. These guys got scared and started to flee. The remaining were already drunk and in that process hit more people in the process, out of which two of them had to get stitches later. The public got more enraged. In the meantime, the rest of the guys fled successfully. These two (Debashish and the other) then hit a post and fell down. They got injured then and after that, a mob took over and started beating them. As a result, Debashish Gogoi died on 31st May. The other guy is not in ICU as reported and according to locals is now out of danger.

Also read: Assam: A poor vegetable seller Sanatan Deka’s murder exposes faultlines

The legal aspect

According to Debojit Gogoi, father of Debashish, case no. 172/22 under section 302, 34 IPC has been charged in Mariani Thana. As per sources, the estimated people involved in the act were around 15 to 20, however, there was no pre-conceived motif. So far 8 arrests and further 4 have been apprehended. The names are Pintu Nayak, Bhaikon Bojra, Ramesh Sabor, Dipak Sabor, Akhik Nayak, Sachin Sawra, Radheshyam Kurmi and Ashok Chawra. One person with objectionable social media post have also been detained. Speaking to Inside Northeast, SP Mrinal Talukdar also corroborated the facts, "we have made 8 arrests and 1 separate for social media". On being asked whether this is a lynching case, he said, "there is no clear line but the police have charged with 302 IPC charge for murder".

Beyond the binary

In situations such as these, it is expected to form a mindset of instant justice as the deceased person was allegedly drunk. It is this train of thought that leads to mob action and associated lynchings. As already cleared by the police, this was not a cold-blooded murder but a spontaneous event. This broadens the need to have an anti-lynching law as it is this loophole of mob mentality when people try to utilise a crowd to break the law happens.

As per the recent law formulated by Manipur which awaits Presidential nod, has defined mob lynchings as “any act or series of acts of violence or aiding, abetting such act/acts thereof, whether spontaneous or planned, by a mob on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, language, dietary practices, sexual orientation, political affiliation, ethnicity or any other related grounds.” The word spontaneous here is important. Wasn’t the case a spontaneous response?

Meanwhile, Assam so far has no such anti-lynching law although there have been multiple cases of mob menace happening in the ground.

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