Amit Shah to Head Group of Ministers to Look Into Mob Lynchings

A Group of Ministers (GoM) was constituted last year to tackle the problem of mob lynchings in India.

File image of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

(Photo: PTI)

A Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted last year to tackle the problem of mob lynchings in India will now to be headed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, a senior government official has revealed.

A report published in The Hindu quoted the official as saying that the GoM had met on two occasions previously.

And since the group was position-specific, there was no need to reconstitute it, the report added, quoting the official.

Other members of the group include External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Social Justice and Empower Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot.

The Supreme Court had, last week, issued a notice to the central government, the National Human Rights commission (NHRC) and the state governments over a plea seeking implementation of its July 2018 order, laying down measures to combat lynchings.

On 24 July, Minister of State for the Home Ministry G Kishan Reddy informed the Rajya Sabha that the government had constituted a GoM to deliberate on incidents of lynching and make recommendations.

He said that the GoM had met and had taken note of the matter.

A high-level committee headed by Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, in September 2018, had suggested measures like tightening of the law by inserting clauses in the IPC and the CRPC through parliamentary approval, The Hindu report said.

After the report, the Centre had held a series of meetings with social media platforms to take concrete steps to take down content that fuels rumours and can, in any way contribute towards the problem.

(With inputs from The Hindu)