Highlights

• This is about footage and photographs of two events, like two strips of memory; cuttings from everydayness. One of them, from Hapur in Uttar Pradesh this month, shows a vigilante group hunting for alleged cow slaughterers and smugglers. It is a blood sport. The mob picks up Sameyddin, a 65-year-old man, and forces him to confess. It then drags a 45-year-old, Qasim, like a sack before it lynches him. He begs for water as he is being beaten up, but the mob refuses.
• The second incident occurred in May, at Ramnagar in Uttarakhand’s Nainital district. A Hindu woman and a Muslim man get isolated in a temple. The mob drags the man out, hitting him at random. A policeman stands up to the mob, protecting the victim with his body. The crowd around waits in anticipation. All that stands between them and their target is the Sikh policeman.

Source: The Hindu