Were Indian police complicit in the Palghar lynching?

Police were punished for their reaction to the lynching

Question: Were Indian police complicit in the Palghar lynching?
Position1 of 2›: Yes, the police were complicit in the Palghar lynching
Argument‹2 of 2: Police were punished for their reaction to the lynching

Two policemen were suspended in connection to the incident.

The argument

Two policemen have now been suspended over the incident. The National Human Rights Commission has even requested a full report on the police officers' behaviour, accusing them of negligence. The NHRC released a statement stating that "Based on a complaint in connection with the incident, a notice was issued to the Maharashtra director general of police (DGP) over the mob lynching of three persons in the presence of police personnel in Palghar district on April 16," going on to say that the incident suggests negligence on the part of the police. The punishment of the police following the lynching clearly indicates that they did handled the incident incorrectly, and indicates that they were complicit.

Premises

[P1]Two policemen were suspended over the Palghar lynching, and the National Human Rights Commission issued a notice to the Maharashtra DGP, accusing the police of negligence. [P2] The NHRC noted three people were lynched in the presence of police personnel, and the officers' subsequent punishment indicates they handled the incident wrongly. [C] Therefore, because the police were punished for negligently allowing the lynching, the Indian police were complicit in the Palghar lynching.

Counter-arguments

The inference from punishment to complicity is where this argument breaks. Suspension is a precautionary administrative step taken while an inquiry proceeds; it records that conduct is under examination, not that a finding has been made. The National Human Rights Commission action the body describes is a *notice* seeking a report — the opening of an investigation, in the Commission's own quoted words — and the argument treats the initiation of scrutiny as though it were its conclusion. More fundamentally, negligence and complicity are different charges. The allegation reported is that officers failed to prevent a killing that occurred in their presence: a failure of capability, numbers, training or nerve. Complicity means something else — shared purpose, or assistance rendered to those who acted. A small police party confronted by a large mob can be overwhelmed, or can fail badly under pressure, without being on the mob's side, and every intermediate possibility between total innocence and participation is compatible with everything the body reports. The argument's own final sentence makes the slide visible: it concludes that the officers 'handled the incident incorrectly, and indicates that they were complicit.' The first clause is what the evidence supports; the second is a substantially stronger claim about intent that the disciplinary and human-rights record cited does not reach. Establishing complicity would require evidence of what the officers wanted or did to assist, and the argument offers none.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A suspension and an NHRC notice are precautionary and investigative steps rather than findings; the body's own quotation describes a request for a report and an allegation of negligence, not an established conclusion. [Rejecting P2] Negligence and complicity are distinct charges. Being overwhelmed by a mob, or failing to control one, is a failure of capability or resolve, whereas complicity implies shared purpose or assistance. That an incident was handled wrongly does not establish that the officers sided with its perpetrators.