Leaders across party lines call for peace, unity
HT Correspondent
JAIPUR: The brutal killing of a Hindu tailor in Udaipur by two Muslim men, captured live on camera, after which the killers issued a video calling for more such attacks, and issuing a threat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, brought widespread condemnation across political lines on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters in Jodhpur hours after the attack, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot said the killing was “beyond imagination”. “This incident of Udaipur is not an ordinary event. The way this has happened is beyond imagination. Can a person even do this? However much we can condemn this, it will fall short,” Gehlot said.
Calling for calm, Gehlot said that he has reached out to opposition parties in the state, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to help maintain peace.
“I appealed to everyone, and I spoke to leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria. We want that, at a time like this, there should be no tension that develops. We should all live in peace. The accused will not be spared. All of the police are looking to this, to arrest them. There will be no shortcomings. I know the kind of rage that an incident like this would have raised in people,” Gehlot said.
Later on Tuesday, Rajasthan Police said that they had arrested the two accused.
Kataria also condemned the incident. “We have had a conversation with chief minister Gehlot, and he said that teams have been deployed. He himself has talked to the officials and further said that those who committed the incident will be arrested soon,” he said. Condemnation came from across the political spectrum, with AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi among the first to call for quick action. “I condemn the gruesome murder in Udaipur. There can be no justification for it. Our party’s consistent stand is to oppose such violence. No one can take law in their own hands. We demand that the state govt takes strictest possible action...,” he tweeted. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said: “...Barbarism in the name of faith cannot be tolerated. Those that spread terror by this violent attack should immediately be punished. We must all defeat hate together...”
Some leaders from the BJP, however, attacked the Congress government with Union minister Bhupender Yadav saying “the brutal murder of an innocent man... shows that the Ashok Gehlot government is running a jungle raj”. “This is what happens when a dispensation makes appeasement its governance model. Reprehensible state of affairs,” he tweeted.
Former Union minister leader Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said the incident was a result of “Muslim appeasement”.
Gehlot responded that there was an “atmosphere of tension in the country”, and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah to appeal for calm.
“I repeatedly tell Prime Minister Modi and Amit Shah... If we appeal, then it makes a difference. But if the Prime Minister says it, then it makes even more of a difference. We should promote love and brotherhood,” he said.