The BJP governed North Delhi Municipal Corporation announced its decision to rename a school in Rohini, after the late Kashmiri Pandit leader Tika Lal Taploo.
Union Minister of State for Ministry of Science and Technology and Earth Science, Jitendra Singh, along with BJP leader and MLA, Vijender Gupta, will be among the dignitaries present at the renaming ceremony here on Sunday.
Mr. Gupta said that the members of Mr. Taploo’s family, along with people from the Kashmiri Pandit community, will be present at the school renaming ceremony. He added that Mr. Taploo’s killing in 1989 was one of “the trigger points for the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley”.
The decision to rename the school comes at a time of intense political tussle between the AAP and the BJP over the movie ‘Kashmir Files’.
Attacking the BJP, Mr. Kejriwal said on Saturday that of the last 20-25 years, during which the Kashmiri Pandits faced an exodus along with extreme hardships, “the BJP had its government at the Centre for 13 years. Of this, for the last 8 years, the BJP has been ruling the Central Government.”
During this period, he added, “not one family has been helped, not a single Kashmiri Pandit family has been rehabilitated to the valley.”
The Delhi Chief Minister alleged that the BJP had only “played dirty politics over their agony” and was now “rubbing salt on the wounds of Kashmiri Pandits” by making a movie on the tragedies they have lived.
“Reports say, they’ve earned ₹200 crores from this movie. To commercialise the pain and agony of a community, and mint money in the name of their tragedy is nothing short of a criminal act. The people of this country will never accept this,” he also said.
Mr. Gupta, a senior leader of his party’s state unit, said that the film was a tribute to “those Kashmiri Pandits who suffered during the events of 1990.”
“Arvind Kejriwal’s statements and behaviour towards the film have been very rude. Previously, his government has made close to half a dozen movies tax-free. However, Kejriwal said The Kashmir Files was a propaganda film and asked for it to be released on YouTube. We still demand that the movie be made tax-free,” said Mr. Gupta.
