Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said those “yet to recover from” the defeat in Lok Sabha elections are trying to communalise “criminal incidents”.Union Minority Affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Wednesday dismissed concerns expressed by 49 eminent people from different fields over incidents of lynching and asserted that Dalits and minorities are safe in the country.
“We saw the same thing after 2014 (Lok Sabha polls) in the name of ‘award wapsi’. This is just part two of that,” the minister said, referring to the then protest by writers against the government’s alleged silence on violence and rising intolerance.
Naqvi said those “yet to recover from” the defeat in Lok Sabha elections are trying to communalise “criminal incidents”, PTI reported from Delhi.
Filmmaker Aparna Sen, historian Ramchandra Guha and director Shyam Benegal are among the signatories on the letter.The open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, signed, among others, by filmmakers Shyam Benegal, Anurag Kashyap, Mani Ratnam, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aparna Sen, Ketan Mehta, singer Shubha Mudgal, actors Soumitra Chatterjee and Konkona Sen Sharma, historians Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar, Partha Chatterjee and Ramchandra Guha, and writer Amit Chaudhury, states that “lynching of Muslims, Dalits and other minorities must be stopped immediately”, and that the slogan “Jai Shri Ram” has become a “provocative war cry”.
The letter, dated July 23, maintained that there is “no democracy without dissent”, and that people should not be branded as “anti-nationals” or “urban Naxals” for voicing dissent.
Talking to PTI over phone, Minister Naqvi said, “No one should communalise criminal incidents. Dalits and minorities are safe in this country. Those who are yet to recover from the defeat of 2019 Lok Sabha polls are trying to do it.”
Forty-nine eminent personalities, including filmmaker Aparna Sen, have written an open letter to PM Narendra Modi over alleged rise in mob lynching caseshttps://t.co/UKuttAVaKv pic.twitter.com/2y56WSJOUw
The letter stated: “Lynching of Muslims, Dalits and other minorities must be stopped immediately. We were shocked to learn from NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) reports that there have been no less than 840 instances of atrocities against Dalits in 2016, and a definite decline in the percentage of convictions.
“Further, 254 religious identity-based hate crimes were reported between January 1, 2009, and October 29, 2018, where at least 91 persons were killed and 579 were injured (FactChecker.indatabase (October 30, 2018)…. About 90 per cent of these attacks were reported after May 2014, when your government assumed power nationally.”
Asking what action has “actually” been taken against perpetrators, the writers stated, “We strongly feel that such offences should be declared non-bailable, and that exemplary punishment should be meted out swiftly and surely. If life imprisonment without parole can be the sentence in cases of murder, why not for lynching, which are even more heinous? No citizen should have to live in fear in his/her own country.”
Maintaining that Jai Shri Ram, “regrettably”, has become a “provocative war-cry that leads to law and order problems, and many lynchings take place in its name”, the letter stated, “It is shocking that so much violence should be perpetrated in the name of religion! These are not the Middle Ages! The name of Ram is sacred to many in the majority community of India. As the highest Executive of this country, you must put a stop to the name of Ram being defiled in this manner.”
