Trinamool Congress MP Nusrat Jahan lent her support to the 49 activists and artists who have written a letter to prime minister Narendra Modi demanding a strict law against lynchings. Nusrat made a post on social media site Twitter saying that the lynch mobs had turned Ram’s name into a murder cry and that the government’s inaction was hitting the country hard. “There are numerous incidents of citizens being attacked by so-called “cow vigilantes” over rumours of eating beef, or cow-smuggling, etc and government’s selective silence and inaction hits us hard,” the TMC MP wrote in her post.

Nusrat also cited data on mob lynchings and names of some of the victims who have been lynched in the recent times. “2014-2019 has the most hate crimes against Muslims, Dalits and minorities to its credit. 2019 has witnessed more than 11 hate crimes and 4 deaths and they are all minorities and the supressed,” Jahan said.

The first-time MP from Basirhat in West Bengal said that those who lynched in the name of Ram should be termed as ‘terrorists’ as they were nothing but enemies of our country.

Nusrat urged the government to frame a law that would stop such assaults. “As young MP, representing new age secular India, I request government and all lawmakers to frame a law to stop such assaults on democracy by mob lynchers,” she said in her post.

A 35-year-old Muslim man lodged a complaint at a West Bengal police station on Tuesday alleging that he was thrashed after he refused to say ‘Jai Shri Ram’. Last month, a man in Jharkhand died in the hospital after he was beaten by a mob on suspicion of theft. A video of the incident showed that Tabrez Ansari, the victim, had been forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ by the mob. In the video, Ansari can also be seen saying Jai Shri Ram and pleading with the mob to let him go.

The 29-year-old MP took a jibe at the goverment despite the Supreme Court asking them to come up with a law to tackle these incidents, they were silent. “The Hon’ble Supreme Court last year on July 17th has called on the government to come up with a law to tackle these ‘horrendous acts of mobocracy’. Par Sarkaar Chup hai!,” Jahan wrote.

On Wednesday, 49 eminent personalities had written an open letter to PM Modi to express their concern over the growing incidents of mob lynching in India. Among the signatories are eminent directors Adoor Gopalkrishnan, Shyam Benegal, Mani Ratnam, Anurag Kashyap and actors Aparna Sen, Konkona Sensharma and Riddhi Sen.

The letter said that the slogan — ‘Jai Sri Ram’ has become a provocative ‘war-cry’ that has lead to many law and order problems in the country.

Nusrat Jahan shared the sentiment and ended her post with a couplet, “Sirf insaaaniyat ke naate, gaay ke naam pe, bhagwan ke naam pe, kisi ki dari pe, toh kisi ki topi pe – khoon kharaba bandh kare (For the sake of humanity, stop bloodshed in the name of cows, god or religion).”