Lynching of Manipur musician Chongtham Vikram Singh sparks outcry over northeast discrimination in Delhi

In the police complaint, Singh’s 20-year-old son, Yaiphaba, said that his father told him that he knew some of his attackers. Yaiphaba explained in his statement to the police that his father told him that some of his attackers had previously also “threatened him” when he had objected to the noise they were making.

Singh was rushed to the Holy Family Hospital in Okhla the night of the assault. He succumbed to his injuries the next day, after which he was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences for a post-mortem. The police have said that they have registered the FIR in the case under the section for mob lynching and are investigating the case.

People close to the family said Singh often went for a walk or took out the trash after dinner, and that this was likely the case on Sunday night as well. According to them and the complaint, he was chased up the stairwell of the building they lived in and was kicked and punched continuously outside the door of his house when Singh’s son heard the screams, opened the door, and saw the attackers shuffling away.

Civil society organisations assisting the family in Delhi in the wake of the assault said that it took a lot of protests for the police to register the FIR under the relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

Soon after making the arrests in the mob lynching case, a statement from the Delhi police said that they are investigating the “circumstances leading to the assault and death”.

What is the section for mob lynching?

Under the new criminal code, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the government introduced new provisions that were specifically meant to deal with cases of mob lynching. The Union government has said that this is the first time this offence has been made punishable explicitly in the criminal code, Section 103(2).Section 103(2) mandates punishments of up to death and life imprisonment for offences when “a group of five or more persons acting in concert commits murder on the ground of race, caste or community, sex, place of birth, language, personal belief or any other ground”.

What was the discourse sparked by the killing?

Soon after Singh’s killing, several civil society organisations representing communities from the States of northeast India called for introspection on how they are treated in certain parts of India, with several of them pointing to incidents like the one in February earlier this year, when a group of young women from Arunachal Pradesh were subjected to racial abuse and slurs in Malviya Nagar.

This came even as several people from multiple northeastern States took to social media to mourn his death, describing their continued anguish over people from their communities feeling unsafe in cities like Delhi.

Manipur rights activist Binalakshmi Nepram said a day after that this attack had made people from the northeast once again ask if they are safe in this “newly developed India”. She also said that it was the responsibility of the Government of India to “educate people” so that they can learn to “love and respect us, not kill us”.

The North East Media Forum, another civil society organisation, urged that this incident should not be viewed in isolation, even as it called for a quick and fair probe.

Manipur Chief Minister Y. Khemchand Singh echoed this and asked the Delhi Chief Minister to ensure a “high-level investigation” by “senior police leadership”, even as Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma said that the killing had “once again reopened the painful wounds of atrocities faced by people from the North East in the Capital”.

Further, in expressing his condolences, Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said that the “safety and dignity of every person from the northeast and every person from India is non-negotiable”.

The incident has also prompted the Opposition Congress to target the government over the safety of people from northeast India by pointing out that families from the northeast are now all asking if they are truly safe.