Reacting to the Opposition’s attack on the incidents of mob lynchings in India, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said that the biggest incident of mob lynching took place in the country during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
“The biggest incident of the mob-lynching happened during 1984,” Singh said, referring to the anti-Sikh riot that took place in the aftermath of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assasination in October 1984.
The minister said the government has formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and assured that justice would be given to the Sikh community. Speaking on the opposition-sponsored no-confidence motion, Singh said the opposition had doubt about who will be the leader and what will the policies be.
“Against whom are you bringing no-confidence? The appeal of the prime minister is such that several people gave up the gas subsidy after he urged them do so.
“They (the opposition) do not trust each other. And when it comes to talking about the leadership, then ‘gayi bhains paani mein (they lose their steam),” Singh said. The minister said the BJP has made a mark in states like Kerela and won Tripura by a two-third margin, which was unthinkable some time ago.
Expressing displeasure for introducing the no-confidence motion despite numbers favouring the NDA, he said the BJP never thought of doing so while it was in opposition from 2004-2014 as it was convinced that Manmohan Singh was safe.
He also took a dig at the Congress saying former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had ridiculed the BJP for having two MPs in the Lok Sabha in 1984, but “one should not be arrogant as time changes and the same party today has majority in Parliament.”
Hitting out at Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s ‘Hindu Pakistan’ remark, the senior BJP leader said, “Where do they (Congress) want to take the country and what does it want India to become.
“Here, there is talk about Hindu Taliban. India is the only country where minorities are prospering. Do they not want such an India,” the Home Minister said.
Recently, the Supreme Court directed the Parliament to a creation of a new penal provision for dealing with cases of lynching across the country saying ‘mobocracy can’t take over’ and that law and order is the government’s responsibility.
A bench consisting of CJI Dipak and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud directed the deal with lynching cases. A compliance report from centre and states was sought. The court called the lynchings ‘horrendous acts of mobocracy’.
