Rally held to promote peace, harmony

JAIPUR: Various peoples' organizations led by the PUCL took out a rally for peace, harmony and justice especially against an orchestrated violence against Muslims in the state on Wednesday.
The rally was carried out on the birth anniversary of Savitri Bai Phule from Shakti Smarak to Civil Lines Crossing.

The protesters had also handed over a memorandum to the chief minister. It said Rajasthan has been witnessing a spate of violence against religious minorities especially the Muslims in the guise of cow vigilantes.

They demanded action against the BJP MLAs Ghyan Dev Ahuja and Bhanwarilal Singhal for their hate speech and blatantly communal statements.

The petition pointed out that the Rajasthan has turned in to a laboratory for violence and hate politics as of recently. It said the mind of the impressionable youth is being polluted by this hate politics in an organized way leading to violence against a section of the society.

"The neo liberal economic policies of the BJP-RSS government have broken the backbone of the people and a simmering discontentment is palpable in all sections of the society. On the one hand the government is following a policy of privatization of all sectors and on the other in order to divert the attention of the people from vital issues the RSS-BJP have been adopting a policy promoting polarization in the name of religion," the petition alleged.

It said the murder of a Bengali labourer Afrazul in Rajsamand in the guise of 'Love Jihad' and its live recording is the culmination of hate politics practiced in the state. Home minister Gulab Chand kataria's certificate to cow vigilantes and provocative statements of party MLA Ghyam Dev Ahuja's call for shooting cow smugglers and another MLA Bhanwarial Singhal's discovery that Muslims are deliberately producing more children to capture political power are hate mongering but no action has been initiated against them, the petition pointed out.

"In the last nine month in the name of Swach Bharat or Cow vigilantism, atrocities are being committed against Muslims and the chief minister cannot absolve herself of the responsibility," it said.