Former Director-General of Police (DGP) Mohammad Mustafa, an advisor to state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu, whose wife Razia Sultana is a party’s candidate, was booked on Sunday for his hate speech during canvassing in the Muslim-dominated town of Malerkotla. He has been booked for promoting enmity among communities.
The complaint has been filed by Malerkotla SHO Inspector Karamveer Singh. Charges under IPC Section 153-A for fostering community hostility and Section 125 of the Representation of People Act have been registered against Mustafa. The Election Commission (EC) is reported to have taken cognizance of the issue and asked the police to take the necessary action.
Malerkotla SSP Ravjot Grewal said, “After getting information about viral video, our SHO has registered the FIR. We would ask Mohammad Mustafa also to submit his reply during our investigations”.
In his video, Mustafa was purportedly heard allegedly threatening Hindus with dire consequences if they organize events near his event during a public meeting on January 20. Responding to the registration of the case, Mustafa said: “I did not target Hindus as is being alleged on social media. I used the word ‘Fitne’, which means lawbreakers. I was angry at a group of Muslims who had tried to attack me. I was warning them, not Hindus”.
He further claimed that the issue was with AAP members who were trying to interrupt his event. AAP, however, refuted the charges while alleging that Mustafa had a tendency to use the communal card and it was the latter who attempted to disrupt the AAP event.
Mustafa shared a clip of his speech on Twitter in his defense. But if one listens carefully, he can be clearly heard saying Hinduon, and not Fitnon.
Reporting on Mustafa’s speech, OpIndia says:
In the video, Congress’ Mohammad Mustafa is heard threatening of creating a situation that cannot be controlled if Hindus were allowed to hold events near his event. Amidst loud cheers and claps, the Congress leader said: “Allah ki kasam kha ke kheta hoon inka koi jalsa nahi hone denge. Main quami fauji hoon, main quami sipahi hoon, mein RSS ka agent nahi hoon jo dar ke ghar mein ghus jaonga (I swear by Allah that I would not allow them to organise any event. I am a warrior and soldier of my community, I am not an RSS agent who will hide in fear.)
He added: “Agar dobara inhone aaisi harkat ki, khuda ki kasam inke ghar mein ghus kar marunga. Aaj mein sirf warning de raha hoon. Mein voto ke liye nahi lad raha…mein kaum ke liye lad raha hoon. Main zila police aur zila prashasan ko bhi batana chahata hoon…agar dobara aisi harkat hui…mere jalse ke barabar mein agar Hinduon ko ijaazat di gayi, toh mein aaise halat paida kar doonga ke sambhalne mushkil jo jayega” (If they again try to do something like this, I swear on Allah I will enter their houses and beat them up. I am not fighting for votes but for my community. I warn the district administration and police that if in future they allow Hindus to hold gatherings next to ours, I will create such an environment that it will be difficult for them to control.)
It beggars belief that this senior ex-IPS is saying things like “I am a soldier of my quam (community)” and threatening to barge into homes of ordinary citizens, and this speech has barely created a ripple in national discourse controlled by left-liberal elites! Neither are our ex-IPS and ex-IAS associations queueing up to submit petitions against Mustafa to the Home Ministry, PM and President, as they are often found doing to play to the liberal galleries.
But it is no surprise that controversial Punjab Congress chief and ex-cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu has surrounded himself with such characters.
Only recently, ex-Punjab CM and Congress leader Amarinder Singh had alleged that Pakistan had lobbied to get Sidhu a ministerial position. Singh said that he had received a message from Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s office asking him to reinstate Sidhu back in his cabinet after he had removed the latter from his cabinet.
He further stated that Sidhu had been removed from the cabinet as Singh believed that Sidhu was incapable of carrying out the duty assigned to him. Readers may recall Sidhu has been often seen hobnobbing with Pakistan in the past. Sidhu had wanted Bharat to resume trade with Pakistan and was even seen hugging Pak army chief Bajwa.
Last year, Malvinder Singh Mali, one of the four advisors to Sidhu, shocked the nation when he claimed that Kashmir was a ‘separate country’ that had been ‘illegally occupied’ by Bharat. He quit the next day, but no action has been initiated against him as yet. Mali had faced a terror case in the past and been removed from a post on corruption charges.
It must also be noted that the above incident took place in Malerkotla where the ex-DGP was campaigning for his wife. Malerkotla is a Muslim-dominated area of Punjab from where the horrific murder of a young child named Vidhu Jain was reported. Jain was allegedly burnt alive by Muslim youth over a trivial dispute.
The Indian Express had reported on the case in May 2018:
Nearly four years after the Punjab and Haryana High Court transferred the probe of a murder case of 11-year-old Malerkotla boy Vidhu Jain to the CBI, the investigating agency has told the High Court that it had failed to trace any perpetrator to date.
The HC has now proposed setting up of an SIT for further probe in the case. Vidhu Jain, 11, had been put on fire in Malerkotla in 2013. In the complaint on September 30 in 2013, his family had told the police that Vidhu had been burnt alive by pouring kerosene on him by a few boys who had an altercation with him few days back over some kite thread. His mother Aarti Jain in 2014 had approached the High Court seeking a CBI probe due to lack of faith in the police probe due to their failure to arrest the accused in the case.
Mustafa’s case indicates an increasingly worrying trend of criminalization and politicization of senior police officers and bureaucracy from so-called ‘secular’ sections of society. Ex-Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh’s involvement in the SUV case and subsequent vasuli (extortion) allegations by Vaze indicates how the bureaucracy is being used by unscrupulous politicians for their narrow ends.
Former IPS officer Humayun Kabir had promised to stand by the Muslims of Bengal while addressing a gathering in Murshidabad. Notably, he made partisan and politically colored remarks while he was still in service. Similarly, Telangana serving IPS officer RS Praveen Kumar was seen taking group oath denouncing Hindu deities.
Similarly, it had come to light UP IAS officer Iftikharuddin was running a conversion racket forcing people to convert to Islam and threatening to ruin their lives if they refused to embrace Islam. Maharashtra ex-IGP SM Mushrif had attempted to pass off the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks perpetrated by Pakistan as a ‘Hindu Brahminist act’ and stated that it was ‘Hindu terrorists’ who got Karkare killed in collusion with the Intelligence Bureau (IB). Such conspiracy theories are often spun to deflect attention from Islamist crimes.
(With IANS inputs)
(Featured Image Source: Amar Ujala)
