Defending Bhopal MP Pragya Thakur for her remarks on slain Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare ahead of the Lok Sabha election, senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar on Wednesday said one should not forget her ordeal in custody at the hands of the Congress government at the Centre then.
“No one denies that Mr. Karkare is a martyr,” said Mr. Kumar, national executive member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. “But, don’t forget the injustice perpetrated on Ms. Thakur by the Congress as part of a larger conspiracy.”
Malegaon blast accused Ms. Thakur in April had said the death of Mr. Karkare in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks was a result of her curse after being treated “very badly” by him while in custody in the 2008 case.
“Hemant Karkare falsely implicated me. He died of his karma. I told him, he will be destroyed. I told him his entire dynasty will be erased,” she had said.
Speaking at a meeting of the RSS-backed Forum for Awareness of National Security in Bhopal, he said: “Don’t stoke sentiments of those who revere cows. Remember, what led to the mutiny of 1857 and eventually galvanised into the freedom movement. Playing with the sentiments of people could take the form of mass movements.”
Stating that attacks on those indulging in cow slaughter were being singled out as lynchings when there more adverse forms of lynchings, he said: “Don’t forget the massacre in Jammu and Kashmir that led to the exodus of hundreds of people from there and the political mob lynchings of opposition workers by the Trinamool, the Congress and the Left in West Bengal and Kerala. Moreover, don’t forget those who raised slogans at universities to divide the country. Even the Supreme Court is delaying the Ram Mandir issue. Isn’t that lynching of democracy?”
Mr. Kumar, however, added that those involved in any kind of lynching should be punished.
‘Scrap Article 35A’
Demanding that Article 35A of the Constitution be scrapped, he said that especially after the strikes following Pulwama and Uri attacks, at least 70% of the people believed that like the rest of the country was open to people from Jammu and Kashmir, even its door should open to them.
