Delhi: Firing Outside Jamia University Is Third Shooting Incident In 4 Days / Bharat Bhushan: Does communal violence threaten Delhi elections?
NB: Ministers of the Union of India and their political allies are whipping up communal frenzy against peaceful protestors on a daily basis. Here are some examples:
May we ask the President of India and senior judges (who are entitled to take suo moto notice of such illegal acts) whether it is permitted to denounce all critics of the BJP/RSS regime as anti-national, traitors, rapists etc? Is this what the Union of India has come to?
Shame on all officials who are permitting criminal acts to go on unchecked. It has already led to three shooting incidents. Are we now at the level of the Phillipines, whose President has openly promoted vigilante violence and murder? Suppose the shooting at Shaheen Bagh had killed people, would the criminals be deemed patriots? Have you inquired into the allegation that the "shoot the traitors" slogan was allegedly given permission by the Delhi Police. What are you doing, gentlemen? Why are you drawing a salary from the public exchequer? To preside over the criminalisation of the Indian state? DS
Two unidentified
persons opened fire outside Gate No. 5 of Jamia Millia Islamia on Sunday night,
the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) said. A statement issued by the
committee, a group comprising students and alumni of the university formed to
protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, said the attackers were on a red
scooty. No one was injured in the attack. One of the miscreants was wearing a
red jacket, the statement said.
This is the third
firing incident in the Jamia Nagar area in four days. Police said they had
filed an FIR and were investigating the incident. Asim Mohammed Khan, former
Congress MLA from Okhla, said the incident occurred around 11.30 pm. “We heard
the gunshot. That is when we stepped out to see and the two men left on a
scooty,” a student told PTI. “We have taken down the vehicle number and called
police,” he added.
https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/delhi-firing-outside-jamia-university-is-third-shooting-incident-in-4-days_in_5e378a2cc5b69a19a4b19579?utm_hp_ref=in-homepageBharat Bhushan: Does communal violence threaten Delhi elections?
Immediately after a
young man shot at protestors against the Citizenship Amendment Act outside
Jamia Millia Islamia University, Sanjay Singh, leader of the Aam Adami Party
(AAP) suggested on Twitter the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may use the
incident to postpone the Delhi polls. “Afraid of losing, the BJP and Amit
Shah are trying to postpone Delhi elections. In the Jamia firing
incident, Amit
Shah tied the hands of Delhi Police and thus they acted as bystanders”
he tweeted. He reiterated the allegation in a press conference later.
Is this imputation
just campaign rhetoric or does it have some basis? While announcing the poll
dates, Chief Election Commissioner, Sunil Arora, had responded to a question by
saying that if the law and order situation deteriorated, the Election
Commission was constitutionally empowered to postpone the Delhi polls. As of
now, the possibility of postponement seems no more than an apprehension. Two
incidents seem to have fed such fears in the charged atmosphere of Delhi
assembly poll campaign.
The first is the
shooting incident in which a highly radicalised youngster shot at student
protestors shouting, “If you want freedom (Azadi), take this”. The police’s
lack of alacrity at the site where they were standing on alert, has led
sceptics to wonder whether the firing incident was scripted. There are no easy
answers for what would have happened had the bullet killed a protestor or if
the gunman had been lynched by the protestors. Another incident of gun-fire by
a Hindu zealot followed at Shaheen Bagh on Saturday. In both instances the protestors
did not react with retaliatory violence.
The coincidence
between the shooting by Hindu vigilantes and the extension given to Delhi
Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik is further fuelling conspiracy theories. On
the face of it, his one month extension has been given by the Election
Commission 24-hours before he was due to retire. But hardly anyone believes
that any statutory institution in India works without direction from the powers
that be.
Patnaik’s tenure has
been lacklustre and the police force has behaved shamefully under his
supervision. It played an active role in communalising the atmosphere in Delhi
when it charged into the Jamia Millia Islamia university library to beat up
students and break property. Was it not acting like the Praetorian Guard of the
ruling party by failing to arrest even a single masked vigilante who beat up
students in Jawaharlal Nehru University. Instead it charged one of the student
leaders who was at the receiving end of the violence. The questions being asked
are: What is the Police Commissioner being rewarded for? And, what services is
he expected to provide in the few days left before polling?
At one level,
conspiracy theories may be dismissed as the fevered imagination of politicians
in the midst of a campaign. The fear of communal violence is so far based on
videos on social media where self-styled “Hinduvadis” and “Rashtravadis” have
threatened to forcibly evict the Shaheen Bagh protestors. But is it pure
coincidence that the BJP has scheduled a rally by its firebrand ideologue and
UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at Shaheen Bagh, the site of peaceful protest
against the new citizenship laws and proposed National Population Register?
Similar sit-in
protests at many sites in Delhi that have a significant minority population,
might give the BJP a shot at power in the national capital if the election
could be converted into a highly charged and communally divisive one. The party’s attempt to
create an incendiary atmosphere in the run up to the polls is evident by some
BJP leaders’ statements that if AAP wins, the Indian capital will become like
Syria with active Islamic State modules or like Kashmir! Another has warned
that if the voters defeat the BJP then the protestors will enter their homes
and rape their women. It seems that Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Minister of
State for Finance Anurag Thakur, Yogi Adityanath and other foul-mouthed
functionaries of the party are all on the same communal page.
Polarisation on
religious lines has however not been a particularly successful strategy of late
for the BJP. In the Bihar assembly elections of 2015 Amit
Shah predicted that celebratory crackers would be lit in Pakistan if
the BJP lost. The BJP lost that election. The abrogation of the special status
of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 to help ‘finish’ Pakistan-sponsored
terrorism, brought no electoral benefits in Maharashtra and Haryana. Nor did
promises of commencing the construction of a Ram Temple at Ayodhya which would
kiss the skies, or of implementing the the newly minted Citizenship Amendment
Act against infiltrators help the BJP in Jharkhand.
If the BJP loses the
state assembly election in Delhi, it would have serious political consequences
for the party and its leadership. It would be the sixth successive defeat for
the party in regional legislative elections. It would confirm the public
impression that Narendra Modi’s magic has long since waned and the party is on
an irreversible downward slide. It would also
demonstrate that “vikas” or the development platform is firmly occupied in
Delhi by Kejriwal and not by Prime Minister Modi whose promise of “better days”
has been proven hollow. Domestically, the prime minister would have to bear for
the rest of his term with his bete noir Arvind Kejriwal setting off his record of good
governance against Mr. Modi’s tall claims. Internationally, the BJP’s defeat
would send a clear signal that the party is unacceptable to the citizens of
India’s capital.
That is why it is
important for the BJP to wrest Delhi from the AAP. Some political observers
suggest that by its desperate pronouncements the BJP has admitted it is no
match for Kejriwal’s AAP. However others given to conspiracy theories claim
that should the BJP’s pre-poll surveys show that polarisation will not help it
win the Delhi election, then whipping up the fear of imminent communal violence
as a reason to ask for postponement of the election might still emerge as a
better option than outright defeat for now.
At the January 31
meeting, police sources said, “The Election Commission sternly asked the Delhi
Police about the first firing incident (near Jamia) and told them that it is
was very shocking that someone had fired in front of several policemen.” The EC also frowned
upon police not taking proactive action against Anurag Thakur, Minister of
State (Finance), and MP Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma for inflammatory poll
speeches, putting the onus on the EC instead. “EC officials reminded the Delhi
Police that they have the power to take legal action against anyone as per the
Indian Penal Code, and they don’t have to wait for the Commission’s directions,”
an officer said. Last week, Thakur,
addressing a rally for the February 8 Delhi Assembly elections, had repeatedly
raised the slogan of “Desh ke gaddaron ko” as the crowd responded with “goli
maaro saalon ko”. The next day, Verma said protesters at Shaheen Bagh could
“enter homes and rape our sisters and daughters”. Thakur was banned from
campaigning for 72 hours, and Verma for 96 hours, by the EC.
