Encounter killing

Woke up to news that the four gangrape suspects had been shot by the police as they allegedly tried to escape from the recreation at the crime scene. No one in India doubts that it was a staged killing and many people seem to be happy about the  summary execution. In a morbid coincidence, this happened on the same day that right-wing lunatics tore down a 16th century mosque 27 years earlier, sparking a pogrom against Muslims. What explains the popular support for these killings? That it is impossible for the supporters to imagine themselves or their loved ones as victims of similar encounter killings? That their class and caste status or religion would shield them from such a fate. Elites, religious and ethnic minorities other people who are not like them in every country, but I feel like the othering reaches another level in India. Is that the legacy of the caste system? Sometimes I feel India is entering a phase of violence and barbarism that many former colonies saw immediately after gaining independence. With their old social orders mangled beyond recognition by colonialism, and with no colonial power to keep ethnic tensions under control (while at the same time fomenting them), a orgy of violence ensued as rival groups jostled for power. That  didn't happen in India because there was a (relatively) secular elite ready to take the reins from the British. That elite ran the colonial-era institutions almost exactly as the British had. That old order is finally collapsing 70 years after independence. But what might replace it could be worse.