This law school maxim seems to be the prevailing sentiment after the court verdict on the Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim in a rape case after his followers ran amok in Panchkula and left the beautiful township scarred after the mayhem.
While the Dera followers would insist that their Naam Charcha was peaceful, the radical Sikh groups insisted on shutting down the Dera Salabatpura where the 2007 incident reportedly took place.
The radical Sikh groups would despatch jathas from Takht Sri Damdama Sahib in Talwandi Sabo to Salabatpura demanding that it be shut down and the police would take them into custody at Bhai Rupa, 10 kms away, to prevent their entry.
There was a more potent example of how religious and caste sentiments are a recipe for trouble.
The local pull-out of this paper had carried a report about water scarcity in the city.
I started getting calls from 6.30 in the morning about the report being derogatory and that it had caste overtones.
The anonymous callers were aware that we were not carrying the apology and had threatened further action.
They had not read the news.
The matter ended but it showed how things were —people got worked up over a report they had not read.
They had reacted just because somebody had told them it was derogatory, and then worked themselves into a frenzy, threatening the staff.