Abdul Bari Masoud | Clarion India
NEW DELHI – Several Opposition parties and Muslim groups on Thursday condemned the shooting incident at Jamia Millia Islamia involving a radical Hindu youth — and in the strongest terms. They said the prompting for the incident was the hate-mongering by ruling BJP leaders and ministers, and demanded that cases be registered against Union minister Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma MP.
Main opposition the Congress said what happened in the Jamia Millia Islamia during the day was a live manifestation of the spectre of hate and terror perpetrated across the country by the BJP and its governments.
Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, party spokesperson and former Union minister Manish Tewari pointed out that the day marked the 72nd death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. “Had he been alive today, he would have been extremely sad. It was important to recall that hate led to the murder of the Mahatma, and it is the same hate that ruled the nation today.”
Coming down heavily on the ruling party, Tewari said the kind of statements emanating out of the BJP leadership in the Delhi Assembly poll campaign showed they had even dropped the pretense of civility. By making such crass and naked communalism from the top-most echelons of the BJP, this government and the forces behind it are seeking to reduce the social and political discourse in this country to the basest level, he said.
Tewari also pointed out that since the end of Parliament’s winter session, the country has been witnessing the shrill hate campaign.
CPIM CONDEMNS INCIDENT
The Communist Party of India(Marxist) also condemned the shooting incident and demanded action against BJP leaders who indulged in hate speech. Former MP and politburo member of the party, Brinda Karat, and the party’s Delhi state secretary KM Tewari jointly lodged a complaint with the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, against minister Thakur and MP Verma for “causing communal enmity, extending threats and making statements that are prejudicial to national integration.” They demanded that an FIR be filed immediately against the two BJP leaders named in the complaint.
SDPI CALL
National secretary of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), Dr Tasleem Rehmani, said the incident was a brazen attempt to provoke peaceful protesters at the Jamia campus. He said it was a direct result of the hate speeches made by BJP leaders, in which a call had also been made to shoot anti-CAA protesters. He also condemned the Delhi Police for standing as mute spectators while the alleged RSS activist opened fire on the protesters. “The SDPI demands immediate suspension of the local police officers and sacking of Union minister Anurag Thakur, along with arrest of all the three hate-mongering BJP leaders,” he said.
MILLI COUNCIL
Prominent Muslim group, the All India Milli Council, said the incident manifested in the violence was an integral part of the RSS – BJP style of functioning. Council secretary general Dr Manzoor Alam said that, on Gandhi’s martyrdom day, his assassins’ offspring resorted to violence by opening fire on the unarmed and peaceful protesters. Dr Alam said the ‘radicalized’ youth got emboldened after the BJP minister gave a clarion call to party supporters to shoot the protesters, made at an election rally in the city.
He also questioned the role of the police as they did not act against the youth when he was brandishing his firearm and raising a religiously loaded war cry. “Hours before the incident, the assailant shared multiple posts on the social media platform in which he boasted he was the ‘only true Hindu’ at the protest site, but the police did not initiate action,” Dr Alam noted.
The police arrested and identified him as 19-year-old Ram Bhagat Gopal Sharma, a resident of Jewar near Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh.
