Seven of the 10 youths named in the FIR in the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq of Bisada village, near Noida in UP's Gautam Budh Nagar district, belong to the family of BJP leader Sanjay Rana. The accused include his son Vishal. A Home Guard, Vinay, charged with spreading the beef rumour and forcing the priest to make the announcement about cow slaughter that led to the mob attack, is also related to Sanjay Rana, according to media reports. The incident at Bisada village, which has no history of communal trouble, follows the beef ban in the party-ruled states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Haryana.
While the Akhilesh Yadav government has been quick in making arrests, it is playing politics over the Basada incident, allowing political leaders, hardliners and even troublemakers to visit the village. On Sunday activists of the right-wing Hindu Raksha Dal visited the village despite the prohibitory orders. Why the Samajwadi Party government is letting the trouble to continue is not hard to understand. It also stands to gain from the Hindu-Muslim divide. If the Muzaffarnagar riots had been dealt with sternly by the SP government, the Bisada killing perhaps would not have happened.
The BJP too is to blame. After the Muzaffarnagar riots, for which the Vishnu Sahai Commission has indicted both the BJP and the SP, the BJP felicitated its two MLAs accused of inciting communal violence at a rally in Agra attended by Narendra Modi, among others. One of the MLAs, Sangeet Som, is now taking the BJP agenda forward at Bisada. He has been joined by Union Minister Mahesh Sharma, who was reported as saying that since the 17-year-old daughter of the victim was left untouched, it showed the mob had no desire to lynch Mohammad Akhlaq. The IAF plans to relocate the bereaved family since one of its members is a corporal-rank technician. It would be unfortunate if the armed forces had to come to the rescue of the troubled families of their soldiers. Once again, the BJP is playing the old game, and once again, Prime Minister Modi's silence is being questioned.
While the Akhilesh Yadav government has been quick in making arrests, it is playing politics over the Basada incident, allowing political leaders, hardliners and even troublemakers to visit the village. On Sunday activists of the right-wing Hindu Raksha Dal visited the village despite the prohibitory orders. Why the Samajwadi Party government is letting the trouble to continue is not hard to understand. It also stands to gain from the Hindu-Muslim divide. If the Muzaffarnagar riots had been dealt with sternly by the SP government, the Bisada killing perhaps would not have happened.
The BJP too is to blame. After the Muzaffarnagar riots, for which the Vishnu Sahai Commission has indicted both the BJP and the SP, the BJP felicitated its two MLAs accused of inciting communal violence at a rally in Agra attended by Narendra Modi, among others. One of the MLAs, Sangeet Som, is now taking the BJP agenda forward at Bisada. He has been joined by Union Minister Mahesh Sharma, who was reported as saying that since the 17-year-old daughter of the victim was left untouched, it showed the mob had no desire to lynch Mohammad Akhlaq. The IAF plans to relocate the bereaved family since one of its members is a corporal-rank technician. It would be unfortunate if the armed forces had to come to the rescue of the troubled families of their soldiers. Once again, the BJP is playing the old game, and once again, Prime Minister Modi's silence is being questioned.
