Jharkhand killings: Congress accuses BJP of running a lynch-mob Sarkar

Fake WhatsApp messages warning people about child lifters in Jharkhand led to seven people being lynched on mere suspicion. Thereafter, videos of separate incidents that show bleeding victims being brutally assaulted by a mob in police presence have gone viral. Another photograph of a bleeding man pleading for life from his assailants led to Congress party to compare it with that of man begging for life during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

“No one seems to have forgotten so quickly the image of a blood soaked body of and of a man begging for his life and I am not talking of Gujarat, I am talking of Jharkhand. They are circulating all over,” said party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Accusing the BJP-led states of beginning a lynching movement, Singhvi said lawlessness “aided and abetted” by the state is the India of today.

The former Union minister said, “This is the real new normal – not just the new normal you are being taught and told about this is the new India and new normal of the BJP. That is intolerance galore, innocents targeted, State-sponsored violence. This is the new norm.”

Earlier in the day, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi tweeted a photo of a blood-soaked man begging for his life in Jharkhand. “From Raj to UP, Haryana & now Jharkhand BJP ruled states are descending into chaos & lawlessness. Will the PM answer?” tweeted the Congress vice president.

Hours later Congress made a presentation of these pictures for the media including the one that Gandhi-scion had shared. Accusing the BJP of thriving on emotions and vulnerabilities of people, Congress said that the saffron party is mischievously using it to target those with different views and ideologies.

Recalling multiple such lynching incidents since 2014, the grand old party called them “state-sponsored activity” considering how police can be seen as mute spectators while innocents are repeatedly attacked with the intention to kill.

“Law enforcement agencies are mute silent spectators - turning a Nelsonean blind eye but actually encouraging as there is no punishment, no fear, in fact an encouragement. In Jharkhand, in fact, police were present – seven people were killed by mobs and figure may increase. I was astonished and shocked to find that even an 80-year-old grandmother of the victims was not spared – badly beaten. What is this India we are living in - this un-Indian idea of the 'Idea of India'?” said the Congress spokesperson.

Taking potshots at the prime minister, the Congress accused the Prime Minister of only practicing “great jumlas”, high-sounding sermons or eloquent silence. “But in fact, this practice is license to kill which would make James Bond gush. Is this the New India which Modi ji wants to create, the so un-Indian India where ruthless mobs take law into their hands, where lynching is instant.”

Singhvi also accused the BJP and its leaders of encouraging and supporting regressive and intolerant remarks of the BJP leaders and senior bureaucrats. “We are not talking of ordinary people, we are talking of leaders like senior, MPs, MLAs and senior office-bearers,” he said. He singled out Union minister Mahesh Sharma for his controversial statement of calling the gruesome Dadri incident as an accident.

“Is this an accident when people are picked, singled out, plucked out for instant mob justice on mere rumour, on mere suspicion, on mere finger pointing, on mere suggestion, on mere innuendos, insinuation. 23 former bureaucrats - some of them very senior level - urged the CM of Rajasthan to arrest those who killed Pehlu Khan. How long could it take?” he said.

Raising the issue of rising atrocities against dalits, Singhvi said it has increased by 38% under the BJP government at the Centre. Citing NCRB data, Singhvi pointed that such incidents jumped from 39,408 in 2013 to 54,355 in 2015 and said that BJP-ruled Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are in the top four states as far as crime against Dalits are concerned.