File image of Nageshwar Rao | Twitter
File image of Nageshwar Rao | Twitter
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New Delhi: Former CBI additional director and retired IPS officer M. Nageswara Rao’s statement calling activist Swami Agnivesh’s death a “good riddance” has invited flak for him and triggered outrage on social media.

On Friday night, just hours after Agnivesh’s death, Rao put out a tweet saying he was an “anti-Hindu donning saffron clothes”.

 

“My grievance against Yamaraj is why did he wait this long,” he further wrote.

Agnivesh, 80, died at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in New Delhi Friday evening after a multiple-organ failure and a cardiac arrest.

As the founder-chairperson of the Bandhua Mukti Morcha (Bonded Labour Liberation Front), Agnivesh gained recognition across the country and the globe for his efforts to end bonded labour.

He was also a vocal opponent of communal politics and implored people to “unitedly fight communal forces”.

Rao slammed

Many on Twitter called out Rao for spreading “hate” and for misrepresenting Hinduism.

 

Activist Rahul Easwar reacted to Rao’s tweet saying: “May Bhagwan Krishna save #Hindu & #Hindustan from #Hate Virus.”

Historian Irfan Habib called out Rao and questioned what he would have done “as a police officer”.

 

Many others such as lawyer Navdeep Singh pointed out that he was serving in the government until recently, “with such thoughts at the back of his mind”.

 

However, despite the backlash, Rao insisted that he wasn’t wrong.

 

Not the first time

This, however, is not the first time Rao has been in the eye of storm for his tweets.

In July this year, Rao had tweeted a series of graphics on the “story of Project Abrahamisation of Hindu Civilisation”.

 

Many retired IPS officers had slammed Rao for his comments at the time. 

Rao, a 1986-batch IPS officer, was shunted out as CBI’s additional director in July 2019 after spending one year in that post. He was then appointed as the General (DG) Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guard, the tenure of which ended in July this year. 

Rao was made the interim CBI chief in 2018 amid a spat between then Director General Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana.

Prior to that, Rao had a controversial career with several complaints of financial irregularities, influencing investigations and scuttling probes against him.

As ThePrint reported earlier, Rao has been accused of financial irregularities right from his time as the chief of fire service directorate in Bhubaneswar in 2016.

Some of the complaints against him included scuttling and influencing investigations within the CBI, misappropriation of funds while in office and his wife’s involvement in a shell company.

 

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