Who lynched Rakbar Khan in the Ramgarh area of Rajasthan’s Alwar district while he and his friend Aslam were taking cows to their village in neighbouring Haryana? The local police or the self-styled gau rakshaks? Though the jury is still out, what is unambiguous is the sloppy enforcement of law and order by the Vasundhara Raje government.While one narrative suggests Rakbar was grievously injured in the attack by vigilantes before the police arrived on the scene in the wee hours of Saturday, according to the other, it was the men in khaki who actually lynched him after the mob assault.
The second theory has Alwar BJP MLA Gyan Dev Ahuja’s endorsement. But how can blaming the police absolve any state government of letting a lynching happen on its watch? No civilised society can accept mob justice, however heinous the crime. It is the duty of the administration to ensure due process. But does Ahuja believe in it? Last year, after Pehlu Khan was lynched in Alwar, Ahuja had said: “Any person smuggling cows would have to suffer a similar fate.”
Ahuja’s diatribe also points to his total disconnect with his government. There is ample indication to suggest he wanted a share of the power cake by getting into the Rajasthan ministry but Raje considered him too toxic and kept him out. That perhaps is one decision she would not regret. For, the vigilantes appear to have drawn strength and patronage from him. If the statement of Aslam to cops is anything to go by, the assailants had bragged: “The MLA sahib is with us. No one can even touch us. Set him [Rakbar] on fire.”
Given this backdrop, a couple of Union ministers carping about Congress President Rahul Gandhi trying to milk the controversy made little sense, as the failure of law and order in a BJP-ruled state offered him an opportunity to have a go at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The party would be better served if it showed a no-nonsense attitude towards mob justice instead of indulging in name-calling.