(Central Chronicle
June 14, 2006)
Personal Thought: Now bounties for Hindu rashtra !
The top brass of the BJP would not have imagined that their nationwide Satyagrah 'Save Doda, Save the Nation' would have a long interregnum dotted with filing of criminal cases against its leaders and the party itself being put on the defensive.
As of now two senior BJP leaders--Vinay Katiyar and Sahib Singh Verma--find themselves booked by the Jammu and Kashmir police for "making provocative statements" and "inciting communal passions" under Section 123-A (inciting people against the state or government) and 153-A (spreading disaffection among people) Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) in Nowabad Police Station. Anyone familiar with legal matters can explain the grave nature of the charges. Under 123-A and 153- A, the guilty could be punished with life imprisonment besides a severe fine.
In fact it all started when Sahib Singh Verma, Vinay Katiyar and many leaders of the BJP-RSS Parivar were in Jammu in connection with the parties campaign aimed at supposedly saving Jammu from "de-Hinduisation." As part of this Satyagraha these people are holding public meetings and courting symbolic arrest. The "bounty speeches" by the Vermas and Katiyars were made before these symbolic arrests. According to the police Rs 1 lakh was offered by them to any civilian who kills a militant and if a civilian dies while fighting militants, his family would be paid Rs 2 lakhs.
It was a positive sign that the provocative statements by the Katiyars and the Vermas received condemnation from all corners of Kashmir's civil and political society. Leaders of the National Conference who happened to share power with the BJP for six years also joined the chorus of voices demanding that nobody has a right to take law into their own hands. It was also brought to the notice of the BJP that during its own regime in the Centre, the graph of killings in Doda was on a higher side but the party never had tried to rake up the issue.
The duplicity of Party was also evident in the way in which it claimed that the filing of criminal charges against its leaders was 'politically motivated'. In fact when the controversial minister in the UP cabinet Mr Quereshi, had in a public meeting announced a reward for the head of the cartoonist who had 'defamed' the Prophet, the formation was in the forefront of the move to prosecute the said minister.
Subhash Gatade
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