New Delhi: National Commission for Minorities says it suspects the lynching of a 52-year-old Muslim in a village near Delhi was the result of “pre-meditated planning.
The federal commission that looks after the welfare of religious minority communities also termed as “disturbing” the controversial statements by some politicians on such outrages to “make capital ”
Some leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party had made controversial comments after visiting Bishada village, where 52-year-old Mohd Iqlakh was lynched over a rumor that he had eaten and stored beef.
The commission said statements further “vitiate” the relations between different communities. These should be stopped at all cost or “things will go out of hand”, it added.
A three-member team headed by the commission chairperson Naseem Ahmad visited Bishada village on Wednesday.
“The team feels that a crowd of large numbers appearing within minutes of an announcement from temple’s loudspeaker and at a time when most villagers claimed they were asleep seems to point to some pre-meditated planning.
“The facts as reported to the NCM team point strongly that the whole episode was the result of planning in which a sacred place like temple was used for exhorting people of one community to attack a hapless family,” says a report prepared by the three-member team.
NCM said it will be “quite an understatement” to say that the killing was merely an accident “as has been claimed even by some persons in authority” — a clear reference to a statement by Union Minister Mahesh Sharma and some other BJP leaders.
It added that what is more disturbing is that responsible persons converge at the place of any such incident and make irresponsible statements that further vitiates relations between communities, The Times of India reported.
“All the political establishments need to counsel their cadres and sympathizers to desist from making irresponsible statements and making capital out of such outrages,” it said.
“The malaise of moral policing” is spreading fast, especially in western UP, it said while seeking vigilance of and curbs on the use of social media, claiming it was being extensively used to flare up communal passions.