New Delhi : The Congress on Saturday condemned the Dadri lynching incident, calling it a pre-mediated, meticulously conspired strategy to create an environment of fear.
A Muslim man, Mohammed Akhlaq, was beaten to death by a mob in Uttar Pradesh’s Bisara village in Dadri near the national capital on September 28 over rumours that he ate beef.
Former union law minister Kapil Sibal said: “What happened in Dadri was not just an attack on Mohammad Akhlaq, it was an attack on the constitution of India, the fundamentals of democracy, our liberal traditions, our cultural diversity, the spirit of tolerance and finally on the soul of India. We condemn it and we’ll leave no stone unturned to fight it.”
“The manner in which Mohammad Akhlaq was targeted was not a fight between Hindus and Muslims. It was a pre-mediated, meticulously conspired strategy to create an environment of fear, to divide the polity for the BJP to gain political capital in Bihar,” he added.
He also questioned the prime minister’s silence over the issue. “Modiji (Narendra Modi) should not have waited for nine days to make a non-statement. His words were insensitive since they did not take note of the forces of hate behind the Dadri lynching,” Sibal said.
Sibal said: “The forces that killed Pansare, Dhabolkar and Kalburgi, the forces that beat up an MLA in Jammu and Kashmir assembly, the forces that didn’t allow Ghulam Ali to perform in Mumbai, that forced couples out of a hotel and invaded their privacy are the same that brutally murdered Akhlaq. The mindset behind these forces sow the seeds of hatred and then seek to profit from the harvest of violence.”
“BJP’s politics of hate is for garnering votes rather than uniting India for peace and prosperity. That is why when Modiji says ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’ and ‘desh ko ek rehna hai’, his words sound hollow,” Sibal added.
Earlier, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said it was not for the head of the government to comment on each and every incident.
Days after the Dadri lynching, President Pranab Mukherjee appealed to the people for tolerance, saying the core values of our civilisation could not be allowed to be wasted.
Responding to the president’s remark, Modi, at his rally in Bihar on October 8, exhorted people to follow the advice of the President.