January 1, 2026 07:56 AM IST First published on: Jan 1, 2026 at 07:56 AM ISTArecent Indian Express editorial (‘Court rescues due process in Akhlaq case’, December 24) rightly welcomes the Surajpur court’s refusal to allow the Uttar Pradesh government to withdraw prosecution in the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq. Yet, precisely because the lynching of Akhlaq has come to symbolise something far deeper than an isolated crime, the editorial’s framing is incomplete. While it recognises the violence involved, it stops short of engaging with the wider culture of impunity.First, the lynching of Akhlaq in 2015 inaugurated a phase in which lynchings became routinised violence against Muslims. Over the past decade, mob attacks on minorities — often justified through allegations of cow slaughter or interfaith relationships — have followed a familiar script. Accusations are publicly amplified, violence is inflicted in full view, and investigations are routinely stalled or diluted by the police. Even after the SC’s 2018 reminder, political leaders have continued to praise “gau raksha” groups, while victims’ families face harassment.AdvertisementSecond, the delay in bringing the perpetrators in Akhlaq’s case to book is an injustice in itself. Even this limited judicial assertion has taken nearly a decade. In this context, delay is a mechanism of impunity where witnesses turn hostile, evidence degrades, and families are exhausted emotionally and financially. That the court has now directed daily hearings and protection of evidence underscores the significant damage already done.Third, the UP government’s attempt to withdraw prosecution is not an isolated “failure”, but part of a broader pattern of state sanction legitimising vigilante violence. Treating it as a deviation from ordinary criminal process obscures its political character. As Mahmood Mamdani argues in a different context, the way violence is framed shapes the remedies it invites. A criminal frame confines responsibility to individuals and procedural lapses, yielding case-specific responses. A political frame, by contrast, exposes lynching as violence sustained by a culture of impunity.Fourth, when the state aligns itself, implicitly or explicitly, with perpetrators of violence, it signals active protection of those behind it. The BJP-led UP government’s bid to abandon prosecution in a mob lynching case reflects this. It is rare for elected governments to align so openly with those accused of such acts. This convergence of political power and vigilante violence poses a grave threat to constitutional governance and the rule of law.AdvertisementFifth justice in the Akhlaq case cannot just come through “social healing”. Without accountability that is timely and insulated from political pressure, the rule of law risks being performative.most readThe UP government’s attempt to withdraw prosecution therefore raises a question about constitutional governance in an era of majoritarian mobilisation: Can the criminal justice system meaningfully address politically incentivised crimes? So long as lynching is treated as episodic lawlessness rather than a structural form of political violence, individual court orders — however welcome — will remain palliative rather than transformative.The writer teaches at the School of Law, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi