The brazen attempts to communalise and politicise a simple crime incident must be thwarted with full force.
Talat Khan,
The attempt to incite communal passions over the death of doctor Pankaj Narang in west Delhi’s Vikaspuri area is a brazen and shameful attempt at giving a crooked turn to a simple situation. A man asks two motorcycle-borne youth to not drive too fast in the lanes, an argument ensues, which takes an ugly turn when one of the motorcyclists calls his friends to the spot. They beat up the doctor badly and run away.
In all the brouhaha and scuffle, I am sure nobody had had the chance to ask each other’s name or surname to ascertain their community, caste, religious faith etc. It’s as simple: You get angry, I get angry, you hit me, I hit back. No questions asked, no consequences reflected upon. That is what is called the “heat of the moment”.
As I write this, two similar incidents pop up in my mind.
In April last year, a 30-something man Shahnawaz was beaten to death by five people at Turkman Gate area of Old Delhi after the former’s bike lightly grazed the latter’s car. A heated argument followed and the five men brutally beat him up to death in front of his two children’s eyes. All the five accused were Muslims, so was Shahnawaz.
Hardly a month later, another incident happened. A DTC bus driver was beaten to death by a man in Mundka, west Delhi, after the bus hit the man’s motorcycle and he fell. His mother was riding pillion. The enraged motorcyclist hit the poor bus driver repeatedly on his head with a helmet till the latter collapsed.
The bus driver’s name was Ashok. The accused was one Vijay. Now, did they ask each other’s name and religion before indulging in a brawl?
The accused in Dr Narang’s case belonged to lower socio-economic group and lived in a slum cluster nearby. They were not likely to be educated. So, as I watched on television, in their media bytes, Narang’s neighbours were raising safety concerns and demanding the jhuggis from where the assailants came, to be removed.
One of them even said that the accused, and the rest of the slum dewellers by extension, were being given political protection because “they belong to the minority community”.
There is nothing new or shocking in this argument or the demand to remove the jhuggis. Every time such an incident happens, the affluent people portray the slum dewellers as monsters, those without any morality or civic sense, the ones who indulge in all sorts of petty crimes and hence a security threat. This happens in India and everywhere in the world. In the US, an unarmed black man is shot dead by the police merely on suspicion.
So if the slum dewellers are “born criminals”, let me remind you of an incident in a poshest locality of the National Capital. In January 2011, one Rajiv Jolly, a restaurant manager was run over and killed by one Vikas Aggarwal, a Jet Airways pilot, after their cars had a small collision!
Come on, these were two educated people coming from very affluent section of societies and were hanging out at a very very “cultured” place of the city. Did the accused, Vikas, ask for the victim’s religion/caste/community before running over him?
If not then how can you assume that Dr Narang was killed by “Muslims” because he was a Hindu?
Five of nine arrested for Narang’s murder are Hindus
Meanwhile, the additional deputy commissioner of police of the district has clarified through her tweets that five of the nine arrested for Narang’s murder are Hindus. Also, the deputy commissioner said that all the accused are first timers, meaning there is no previous criminal case against them.
As for Narang’s neighbours falling over each other to give media bites, when Narang was being thrashed by the hooligans, none of them came out of their homes to save the doctor. They just watched the whole incident from the safe distance of their balconies. Do they have a moral right to speak on behalf of Dr Narang’s family?
The hate mongers are panning the lady police officer on the social media for sharing this information. There must be strict action against all such people.
