The police did not try to stop the lynching

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that police complicity in the Palghar lynching does not require showing that officers joined the mob, only that they were present and did nothing. By all accounts of the crime, that is what occurred. The three travelling men were first stopped by guards, and a small police presence arrived afterwards. Neither group properly intervened. At no point did anyone with the authority to act use it to stop the angry mob from killing the three men. What makes the omission difficult to explain away, on this argument, is the visibility of what was happening. The lynching took place in view of the police, so this was not a case of officers being unaware of a crime in progress elsewhere or arriving after the fact. Video of the incident shows them witnessing the killing without stepping in to try to stop it. The explanation the police themselves offered was that they believed the victims to be robbers — but proponents note that this does not answer the objection, since a suspicion of robbery is a reason to detain and question men, not a reason to stand by while a crowd beats them to death. The conclusion drawn is about the meaning of inaction by people holding a specific duty. A bystander who fails to intervene in a killing has failed morally; an officer who fails to intervene has also failed in the function that gives them their authority, and has done so in circumstances where intervention was what their presence was for. On this reading the police did not merely watch a crime they had no part in — by declining to do their jobs while the killing proceeded in front of them, they were complicit in the Palghar lynching.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The police did try to stop the incident. A statement released by police said that “one of our patrolling vehicles later spotted the severely injured trio lying on the road and stopped to investigate. However, our team was also attacked by the mob and the vehicle pelted with stones. Our personnel had to flee and were unable to rescue to the victims”.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The counter-argument on record contests the factual claim. The police statement says a patrol vehicle came upon the injured men and stopped to investigate, that the officers were themselves attacked and the vehicle stoned, and that they were forced to withdraw without being able to reach the victims — which, if accurate, describes an attempted intervention that failed rather than an absence of one. [Rejecting P2] Video of officers present during part of an incident does not establish what they did before or after it was filmed, and a small number of officers facing a large crowd may be physically unable to intervene without being overwhelmed. Failure to act under those conditions is a question of capacity, and possibly of a failure to call for reinforcement, rather than of intent. [Rejecting C] The conclusion also asserts more than the premises support. Complicity implies participation or deliberate facilitation, whereas the evidence assembled here would at most establish inaction — which the rival positions read as inadequate numbers, poor command and a failure of nerve. Distinguishing the two is precisely what the inquiries into the incident were required to determine, and the argument treats the question as settled by the appearance.