In a second attack on Jammu and Kashmir MLA Engineer Rashid in less than a fortnight, ink and mobil oil were thrown on him on the Press Club of India premises here on Monday. Earlier this month, he was >beaten up by some BJP MLAs in the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly for hosting a beef party.
Mr. Rashid had just finished addressing the media about the unrest in Udhampur over an attack on truckers when two men targeted him with black ink. Minutes after the attack, the Vishnu Gupta-led Hindu Sena claimed responsibility for the incident. “We threw ink on him for hosting a beef party,” said Prem Rajpoot, Sena’s national in-charge.
The two assailants, Deepak Sharma and Devendra Upadhyay, were immediately detained by a police team present at the spot, DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said. They were booked for wrongful restraint and assault with an intention to dishonour.
The police said the assailants sneaked into the club posing as journalists. “The MLA was surrounded by the media while he was waiting for his car. We had deployed sufficient policemen, but the accused pushed through and threw the ink,” Mr. Narwal said.
The ink also fell on some family members of the truckers targeted in the Udhampur attack on October 9.
Second attack
Monday’s attack was the second such incident in the country in a week. Last Monday, Shiv Sena workers had thrown ink on Sudheendra Kulkarni in Mumbai for organising the launch of a book by the former Pakistan Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri.
Responding to the attack, Mr. Rashid said he wanted to use the incident to show the world “where India stands today. I want to tell the people of India to see where they are headed to.”
“You say Talibanisation of Pakistan is taking place, but what is happening in India,” he asked. “They [the ink attackers] are mentally ill. Eighty thousand people have died in Kashmir. Throwing ink on one Engineer Rashid will not change anything.”
Earlier, addressing the media, Mr. Rashid demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi openly seek forgiveness for the Dadri and Udhampur mob attacks. Since the government wanted to ban cow meat in India to respect the sentiments of the majority Hindus, in Kashmir they should respect the sentiments of Muslims who dominate the State’s population. On Monday, family members of the two victims reiterated their demand for compensation on a par with that given to the kin of the Dadri lynching victim.
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