Right from the beginning, mob has always been an indispensable part of the human civilization. In fact the society had been formed out of the mob by the mob and one may still add, for the mob. There is a mob instinct in every human being. There are moments in a person’s life when his/her sense of reasoning gives in to the powerful tide of blind rage, and the atavistic hunger for vengeance surfaces to take charge. However, just because of one single individual called Hitler, who was drunk in power, the whole world community had not penalized the Germans as a whole. And because of this heartless and mad man, six million Jews had perished during the World War II and almost half of the world had been devastated. Yet the whole mankind had not built up a mob to destroy the German nation. Then just because of the son of the mother of all battle, Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq; the US-led allied force of 30 countries, had not tried to liquidate all the Iraqi people, in 1991. But the irate masses of France had no hesitation in sending the king of France, Louis XVI and his queen Marie Antoinette to the guillotine after the French revolution and the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II and his whole family were executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 at Ekaterinburg. In 1989, the people of Romania dethroned the president, Chaucescu and q mob killed him at Bucharest.

Though these are all history now, it can't be said with conviction that such decisions were arrived at after proper enquiries and fair trials. The judgments were passed rather by mobs in order to appease their own thirst for revenge. We, the human beings, sometimes behave exactly to the contrary of what the Bible firmly tells us. "Thou shall not avenge." When angry and burning with the desire for revenge, man loses all senses and controls. Thus on the spur of the moment, the mobs, like packs of hungry wolves, rush, in with war-cries, and set afire people's home, lynch men and women, destroy other's properties. Such incidents are increasingly becoming routine in this small state of Manipur. In cases of flights resulting in the death of one or other or in cases of rape or stealing someone's property or even for selling country liquor, a mob suddenly decides to teach the alleged wrongdoer a lesson or two by razing his or her home to the ground and expelling the person and his/her family from the village or locality. Such acts will not contribute in any way to the advancement of the society, rather will retrograde it to the primitivity. It will do more harm in the long run than teaching the alleged wrong doers a lesson. Just for an individual's wrong-doing, it is not wise to punish the whole family including the innocent little children who, when grown up, would one day review the whole episode and feel pretty bad about the society. While we condemn the law-keepers of sometimes misusing the law, what difference will there be if the people who must abide by the law take the law into their own hands and render mob justice. What then will be the use of the courts? That will be the syndrome of anarchy and enemy of the modern civilization.