Rahul Gandhi Takes A Dig On Modi Over Lynching In Punjab
Taking a dig on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi took to twitter and blamed him for the increase in the number of lynching cases since the PM came into power in 2014.
The 51-year-old leader took to twitter and said that “Before 2014, the word ‘lynching’ was practically unheard of. #ThankYouModiJi,” the Congress leader said went on in Hindi and English. Cases of careless deaths have been on the rise for the last few years. Many have been over religious sentiments itself.
Gandhi took a swing at the PM after similar instances of lynching of two accused following instances of alleged desecrations at Sikh shrines in Punjab happened in the last two weeks. A man was killed over an alleged sacrilege bid at the Golden Temple. The following day, a second person was beaten to death for reportedly disrespecting the Sikh flag at a gurudwara in Punjab’s Kapurthala district.
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The skirmish was further exasperated when Punjab Congress Chief Navjot Singh Sidhu made a comment that such offenders should be publicly executed. References were made to 1984 massacre and then anti-Sikh rights too.
Former minister and senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar also hit back at Rahul Gandhi. “Get facts right. 2000+ Sikhs were lynched in 1984 & Congress justified it. Selective amnesia will not work. We condemn all lynching,” Javadekar said.
To be sure, the National Crime Records Bureau, the government agency mandated to compile crime statistics, does not maintain figures of lynching. It did make an effort in 2017 but never published the data that was collected, reportedly due to flaws in the data since lynching is not classified as a separate offence in the penal code. A Supreme Court recommendation in 2018 to enact a special law to penalise lynching is still pending consideration.
