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Apology by Ikhlaq kin could have settled Dadri issue: RSS
A “prompt apology” from the Dadri family which allegedly possessed beef could have averted the flare-up the country saw last year after the mob lynching of a middle-aged man in the eastern Uttar Pradesh area, according to a senior leader with the Muslim wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
A “prompt apology” from the Dadri family which allegedly possessed beef could have averted the flare-up the country saw last year after the mob lynching of a middle-aged man in the eastern Uttar Pradesh area, according to a senior leader with the Muslim wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Instead, the issue got politicised with the state government “trying to hide the truth” in the case where 52-year-old Mohammad Ikhlaq was killed and his son severely injured ten months ago, Indresh Kumar, who is a guide of the RSS’s Muslim Rashtriya Manch, said.
Kumar’s statement on Saturday comes a after an FIR was lodged against the family of Ikhlaq, who was killed in his Bisara village near Noida on September 29 last year by angry protestors who also seriously injured his 22-year-old son Danish. On Thursday, a trial court Surajpur directed the Greater Noida police to register a case against Ikhlaq and his family.
“If the family knew it had done injustice (by killing a cow), it could have just said ‘sorry’. That would have cleared their conscience,” he told reporters, after attending a Sangh-sponsored Eid Milan Samaroh in Saket Nagar. ““The local administration could have registered the crime then itself.”
Uttar Pradesh is among the states that has enacted a law (since 1955) prohibiting slaughter of cow.
The RSS leader wanted the SP government in the state to “bring out the truth it sought to hide”, lest the “people will be compelled to ensure justice” on the matter.
Kumar went to the extent of saying that Islam, too, prohibited eating cow meat. “Prophets from Adam to Mohammad never had meat in their life, and Islam preaches against hurting sentiments to get God accept one’s prayers,” he claimed.
On Zakir Naik, Kumar said Muslims the world over have opposed the controversial preacher more than people from other religions. “I will say if your words spread hate and incite people to kill, you are not for Insaniyat (humanity) but Shaitayinat (devious). Millions of Muslims view him this way,” he said.
The central government should consider the Muslim sentiments that are against him, and initiate appropriate action against the founder of the Islamic Research Foundation in Mumbai, the RSS leader said.
Supporting the idea of a uniform civil code, he said the country needed the proposed legislation for it to progress and foster brotherhood. He refused to comment on the practice of triple talaq in Islam, but said the scriptures of that religion defined divorce as the “most undesirable sin”.
On the latest strife in Kashmir, Kumar said he sensed positivity this time with the Muslim clerics in the Valley appealing the masses not to resort to violence.
Earlier in the day, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said the Sangh might go for “certain changes” in the working style of the cadres, but there would be “absolutely no change” in the basic policies of the nine-decade-old organisation.
Sangh sah-sahkaryavaha Dattatreya Hosbole, speaking at the valedictory session of a three-day long training meet of the outfit’s volunteers, said RSS additional general secretary Krishna Gopal would “continue to work towards ending groupism” in the state unit of the BJP, and strive to make the party stronger ahead of next year’s assembly election.
Hosbole’s statement sought to quell rumours that the RSS was contemplating to bring in sar-sahkaryavaha Suresh Soni in place of Gopal.
