...yet another blames victim’s community: ‘People should know’
Days after a man was allegedly lynched by cow vigilantes in Alwar, a BJP legislator has accused people from the victim’s Meo community of being involved in crime in the district and said he had already banned them from his office.
“The killing of Akbar Khan has shocked the nation and it should be probed fairly,” Alwar (Urban) MLA Banwari Lal Singhal said.
“The law will take its course. But at the same time it is also a fact that people from the Meo community are involved in crime and entire Alwar is suffering, and people should know about this,” he added. Head of the Alwar Meo panchayat , Sher Mohammed, called the MLA’s remarks an unfair generalisation of the entire community from Mewat region, spread over parts of Haryana and Rajasthan.
The MLA blamed people from the region for crimes like robbery in Alwar. “Many of them come to Alwar from Haryana and return to their villages after committing the crime,” he claimed.
Singhal said he had earlier stopped people from Mewat from entering his office, claiming that most of them came only to seek favours for their relatives involved in crime.
Sher Mohammed took exception to the charge levelled by the MLA saying that there might be criminal cases against people from the region, “but generalising the whole community is unfair”.
He also submitted a memorandum to the district authorities expressing concern over over the safety of Meos in the state. “Rajasthan has become Lynchistan where so-called cow vigilantes lynched Akbar Khan. The cow vigilantes are without any fear and five people have so far lost their lives in Alwar,” Mohammad alleged in the memo addressed to chief minister Vasundhara Raje.
He also alleged that Ramgarh MLA Gyan Dev Ahuja has been “openly saying” that those who beat up Khan were his own men, a charge denied by that BJP MLA.
The police said Sher Mohammed is “history-sheeter” at a police station in Alwar district. But the Meo leader suggested that these were false cases. “When the police do not find a culprit, they frame a Meo person and I am fighting for such people,” he said.
JAIPUR: