In what appears to be an endeavour to forge Dalit-Muslim ties in Maharashtra, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) on Saturday demanded a CBI probe into the horrific murder of a three-member Dalit family in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district.
Condemning the murders of Sanjay Jadhav, his wife Jayashree and their teenage son, Sunil as “heinous” and “inhuman”, MIM President Asaduddin Owaisi visited the village of Javkhede Khalasa in Pathardi Taluk in a show of solidarity with the bereaved. The trio was mercilessly hacked to death and their dismembered parts strewn on the little plot owned by family.
With the police still clueless more than three weeks after the murders, Mr. Owaisi urged a speedy resolution to the case.
“The MIM will leave no stone unturned to see that justice is done in this case. We will raise this issue in full force during the winter session of the State Legislature at Nagpur. We also plan to take it up in Parliament,” said Mr. Owaisi, speaking to reporters in Ahmednagar.
Imtiaz Jaleel, former journalist and the AIMIM MLA from Aurangabad Central, said that if the need arose, the party would spearhead a State-wide agitation over the Javkhede killings.
The hardline MIM, seeking a firm toehold in Maharashtra with a program for Dalits and Muslims, nettled the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party this election by eating into their minority vote banks and bagging two of the 24 seats it contested.
The MIM’s success in Solapur district has alarmed stalwart Congressman Sushil Kumar Shinde sufficiently to prompt his daughter Praniti, an MLA from Solapur City Central, to call for a ban on the Muslim party.
Earlier, the NCP too, had called for a CBI inquiry into the Javkhede murders.
Meanwhile, the Ramdas Athawale-led Republican Party of India (A) has met the Governor to urge him to direct the police to withdraw the cases slapped on RPI (A) demonstrators in Latur district agitating against the Javkhede murders.
Cases of vandalism and wanton destruction of public property were slapped on the demonstrators who went on a destruction spree, smashing windscreens and shop windowpanes.
