Police inspect the car that was attacked in Gadchinchle village. (File)The BJP on Wednesday intensified its attack on the ruling Uddhav Thackeray government over the mob lynching of two Hindu seers and their driver in Palghar in April.
Targetting the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance, BJP MLA Ram Kadam demanded that the probe into the case be handed over to the CBI. With placards and banners in hand, Kadam and his supporters also threatened to march to Palghar.
However, before their ‘Jan Akrosh Yatra’ could commence, the Mumbai Police reached Kadam’s residence in Khar and detained him. Released a couple of hours later, Kadam accused the government of stalling his protest.
Joining him outside the police station after his release, BJP MP and former chief minister Narayan Rane also attacked Sena and the CM. “Shiv Sena has given up on Hindutva. What should one expect from them,” said Rane, a known Uddhav baiter.
“Thackeray is not interested in granting justice to seers,” he added while reiterating the demand for a CBI probe in the matter.
On April 16, two seers and their driver, who were heading towards Surat from Mumbai in a car, were beaten to death by a mob in Palghar’s Gadchinchlale village on suspicion that they were child-lifters. The state Criminal Investigation Department, which is investigating the matter, has arrested over 225 people in the case.
Citing restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic and likely law and order issues, the Palghar Police had earlier served a prohibitory notice to Kadam.
The Congress, meanwhile, accused the BJP of “politicising” the issue. In a series of tweets, party spokesperson
Sachin Sawant alleged an “ulterior motive” behind BJP’s demand for transferring the case to the CBI.
“Gadchinchlale is a BJP stronghold. For the past ten years, the village has had a BJP sarpanch. Many of those accused in the case are affiliated to the BJP. The demand for a CBI probe is being made to save them from action,” Sawant alleged.
Accusing the BJP of stoking communal tensions, he also questioned the party’s silence on violence against Hindu seers in BJP-ruled states.
Mumbai’s Guardian Minister Aslam Shaikh, from the Congress, also accused the BJP of trying to fan communal fire.