PALGHAR :
People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) on Friday urged the Maha Vikas Aghadi government to conduct a fair probe into the mob lynching incident without repressing the villagers by tagging them all as complicit in the heinous crime.
Strongly condemning the killings, PUCL stated that its activists took stock of the on-ground situation and several misgivings doing rounds in minds of the villagers have come to fore.
It averred that several villagers have abandoned their homes fearing that they will also be counted among the perpetrators. An instance of which is a woman giving birth in the nearby forest where she is hiding after fleeing home, it added.
“PUCL urges the administration and police to investigate these and other reports of severe police repression and take necessary steps to mitigate the situation at the earliest,” it asserted.
The killings were the result of rumours doing rounds in the village that criminals are lurking in the area hence the police should also unravel the source of this falsehood, it said.
“PUCL believes that instead of unleashing repressive measures, the need of the hour is to reach out to tribals and actively discourage elements who fuel hate and fear,” it mentioned.
The Union also asked the ruling dispensation to come to the aid of the tribals living in the village as they are facing severe financial woes owing to the COVID-19 crisis.
“The administration needs to utilise local governance structures like the Panchayats, mitigate economic and social deprivation, and increase MNREGA work, which is presently woefully inadequate and employs only a fraction of the population. Schemes to allow tribals to improve their own lands/forest plots for a remuneration (partly food grains and partly money), through the gram panchayat are sorely needed,” it suggested.
“The inquiry must include the origin and the spread of the rumors, efforts taken by the administration and police to quell the same, actual lynching incident itself, action taken by the police to prevent the lynching, role of the police in spreading fear and terror in the villages after the incident,” it demanded.
“The mass arrests of the villagers on the presumption that all of them were part of the mob should be stopped as well as peace must be restored so that people can return to their homes and prepare for the agricultural season,” it further said.