The lynching of Pradip Das in Kailasahar, Tripura, is not just a tale of violence—it’s a tale of fear, suspicion, and deep-seated social mistrust. Das was chased down by villagers who believed he was trying to steal goats. When he accidentally injured a local while trying to escape, fury erupted. He was caught and killed, and his vehicle was torched.
It is easy to label the villagers as monsters, but that does not address the root of the issue. Many rural communities operate in a climate of fear—fear of theft, lawlessness, and being ignored by the police. This fear, mixed with anger and mob psychology, leads to tragic outcomes like what we saw in Kailasahar.
The law must punish the guilty, but we must also ask: why do people feel that taking justice into their own hands is their only option?
There is a breakdown of institutional trust here. Villagers no longer believe that calling the police will result in justice or timely intervention. When state mechanisms fail, people revert to primitive, tribal forms of justice—swift, brutal, and irreversible.
Education, better policing, and rapid grievance redressal systems are essential if we are to prevent such incidents. A government that cannot protect the innocent or enforce the rule of law uniformly is not just failing victims like Pradip Das—it is failing its own people.