August 21: Lakshmibai Shinde, a maid, accuses Thane resident Prakash Shetty of molesting her. Over 100 people storm Shetty's home, beat him up and trash the premises. Investigations later reveal that the maid made the whole story up after a dispute over wages.
August 30: A doctored television sting operation suggests that schoolteacher Uma Khurana has been forcing girls in her charge into prostitution. A mob thrashes Khurana, goes on a rampage through the streets looting and burning. It is subsequently revealed that the sting was manufactured by a local businessman seeking to settle scores with the teacher; it is also revealed that most of those who rampaged had nothing to do with the school in question.
September 4: In Bhagalpur, Bihar, Salim, 20, attempts to snatch a gold chain. A mob materialises, and for the best part of half an hour, vents his fury on the man. The police then arrive, beat up Salim in front of the approving mob, chain him to a motorcycle and drag him through the roads to the local police station.
September 13: In Dhelpurwa village, Bihar, ten people suspected of theft are bludgeoned to death by a mob; a 11th is critically injured. It turns out that none of the 11 had anything to do with a series of thefts that had angered the locals.
September 22: A drive against illegal encroachment in the vicinity of the Jamia Miliia Islamia University in New Delhi turns violent when rumour spreads that the police mishandled a copy of the Koran. Mobs rage; many are injured, and two police posts burnt down.
October 1: A rumour spreads that the principal of a local convent is misbehaving with young girls. A mob of around 150 materialises; the principal is manhandled, the school is ransacked, furniture burnt.
October 7: A woman in a store in Edappal, Malappuram, Kerala, complains that her child's golden anklet is missing. Staff and bystanders home in on the seven-months-pregnant Jyothi, 40, her daughter Kavita, 16, and small child. A mob of around 100 assembles; the women's clothes are torn, they are beaten and kicked and abused while the child screams for help. The rampage lasts 45 minutes before the police finally arrive. The women are taken to the police station and again, searched. Nothing is found; they are declared innocent and finally taken to hospital for treatment.
October 7: A mob goes on a rampage in Delhi after a city bus ploughs into a pavement, killing seven. Buses and private vehicles are burnt, shop fronts are damaged and goods looted, a couple of dozen are injured.
November 9: Miffed over the demolition of an under-construction temple by the Indian Army, an unruly mob ransacked and set on fire the army cantonment head office at Ramgarh, 45 kms from Ranchi. The temple near Subhas Chowk, the army said, was on cantonment property and hence illegal, it was demolished during the construction phase.
10 representative instances spanning a little over two months -- and sadly, the list is merely illustrative, not comprehensive. Any random trawl through the newspaper archives throws up dozens more, each month -- each story more horrific than the last and all with one common theme: vigilante violence, of the most unprincipled, inhuman kind, has become the norm.
We are left with two questions: Why? And what can be done about this?
Image: Ranjeet lies in a hospital in Vaishali, Bihar, after being beaten by villlagers following an attempted robbery. Photograph: Strdel/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: 'Nothing wrong in Uma Khurana's behaviour'
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