Hindu group offers help to family of Raj man accused of hate crime

KOLKATA:

A year after Rajasthan resident Shambhu Lal Regar triggered countrywide outrage after being caught on camera murdering a Bengali Muslim labourer, a Hindu group from Bengal has offered his family financial and legal support.

On December 6, 2017, Afzarul Khan, a resident of Sayedpur village in Bengal’s Malda district, was killed with a sharp weapon and his body was set ablaze by Shambhu at Rajsamand. The murder was captured on video allegedly by Shambhu’s nephew who was around 15 at that time. Shambhu was seen ranting that he killed to ‘stop love jihad’, a term used to refer to Muslim men marrying Hindu women. The teenager is lodged in a state-run juvenile home in Udaipur since then and Regar is an undertrial prisoner at Jodhpur jail.

On December 2 last year, Devdutta Maji, president of the Singha Bahini, visited Shambhu’s family at Rajsamand and gave his wife Sita a cheque for ₹1 lakh.singha Bahini also offered to help the teenager. On Friday, Maji wrote to Prime Minister and the chairpersons of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and National Commission for Scheduled Castes seeking the boy’s release. The Regars belong to the Scheduled Caste. “I apprehend that this little boy is a victim of dirty politics and/or callousness of a section of the administration,” Maji wrote in his letters.

Sonia Regar, the boy’s mother, said from Rajmasand over phone on Saturday, “We are allowed to see our son but we have no idea what the administration intends to do with him... he is innocent.” Sonia and her husband, Prakash Regar, met Maji in Udaipur on January 3 and sought his help.