Kasargod: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan says the Railways Minister Piyush Goyal’s statement on the recent attack on nuns has proved that religious minorities have no protection under the federal government again.
While addressing a press conference in Kasargod, northern Kerala, March 30, Vijayan said Goyal’s claim that the nuns were attacked on trains in Uttar Pradesh was only an allegation. The attack was carried out for the “sole reason that they were nuns,” asserted Vijayan.
“In a country where the right to freedom of movement is constitutionally protected, they were attacked for the sole reason that they were nuns,” he said.
Goyal on March 29 dismissed as wrong the allegations that two members of a Kerala-based congregation were “attacked” during a train journey in Uttar Pradesh.
The federal minister also accused Vijayan of “making false statements” on the issue.
“There was no attack on any nun whatsoever…the chief minister of the state (Kerala) is completely lying and making false statements when he says that,” Goyal told a press conference in Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala.
The alleged incident that occurred at Jhansi railway station in Uttar Pradesh state on March 19 had its echoes in poll-bound Kerala with Chief Minister Vijayan taking it up with the federal government and Home Minister Amit Shah promising strong action.
The Railway Minister dismissed the allegations that the alleged student activists associated with a Sangh Parivar outfit bogged the nuns down and pulled them out of the train.
“That is absolutely wrong,” he said.
The minister did not say who made the complainant against the nuns.
According to officials in Jhansi, the nuns were detained on March 19 after local Bajrang Dal activists complained that two women were allegedly being taken forcibly for religious conversion.
The police had said there was no basis in the complaint and all four women later took the next train to their destination in Odisha.
Source: thehindu.com