All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday claimed that the Sangh parivar was responsible for the incidents where people were beaten up for not chanting “Jai Shri Ram”. Owaisi said that only Muslims and Dalits were being targeted and that such instances were not going to stop, ANI reported.
“People are being beaten up if they do not raise slogans of Jai Shri Ram and Vande Mataram,” he said. “There are organisations behind such incidents and all of them are linked to Sangh parivar.” His statement came days after 24-year-old Tabrez Ansari, a Muslim man, died after being assaulted by a mob in Jharkhand.
On Saturday, Owaisi had called lynching incidents “politically motivated, communal hate crimes”. “To oppose them and ask justice for the victims’ families isn’t what makes it political,” he said in a tweet. “Not speaking against them or calling them ‘misunderstandings’ or ‘mistakes’ is mala fide and encourages the mob to continue its ‘good work’.”
His remarks were in response to Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi’s comments earlier in the day that lynching incidents should not be given a “communal colour”. Lynching is a criminal subject. “It should not be given a communal colour. It is highly condemnable and no one should politicise it,” PTI quoted him as saying.
A day after Ansari’s death, Owaisi had condemned the incident and claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had increased hatred against the Muslim community. “They have successfully created a mindset where Muslims are seen as terrorists, anti-nationals and cow slaughterers,” he had said.
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