Shamsher Khan Pathan has now been etched in Social Media folklore as the guy who was thrown out by Arnab Goswami for having a loud and aggressive attitude against women and his condescending and radical remarks. More specifically, he was thrown out of Arnab’s show because of his suggestion that the female muslim panelists should try issuing a triple-talaq to their husbands and see what happens.
As it turns out, this was not his first brush with controversy. Shamsher Khan Pathan had floated the Avam Vikas Party which was one of the outfits present at the infamous protest at Azad Maidan Mumbai back in 2012. This protest culminating with 2 people losing their lives, 55 people including 45 police officers getting injured and the Amar Jyoti Javan Memorial present there getting desecrated.
The shocking part is, Mr Pathan is himself Former Assistant Commissioner of Police. Comsidering he has seen the police force inside out, one would have imagined that the group he leads would not have resorted to attacking cops. We can only wonder as to what Mr Pathan felt about the injury and loss of property of his ex-colleagues.
Worse, Mr Pathan was asked by the Mumbai police to vacate his Government owned house for sheltering the Azad Maidan rioters. The Dongri Police report stated that right from the day of his retirement, the retired cop was conducting political activities from the house, which belongs to the government. Further, on August 11, the day of the riots, more than a dozen rioters had visited Pathan’s house and stayed there for a few hours
Not just that, in another case Mr Shamsher and his supporters were booked for rioting and obstructing a public servant in duty. They were supposedly protesting that Mr Shamsher’s medically unfit goats which were to be sacrificed for Bakri-Id weren’t being given proper care.
Had this been a small time activist or neta, no one would have batted an eyelid but this man served in the police force and rose as high up as the Assistant Commissioner of Police. When you assume such a high office, your opinion and actions matters and you are able to take and influence key decisions. With such radical religious opinions and misogynistic outlook one wonders as to would he have been able to take sound unbiased critical decisions which would have influenced the lives of both women and people whose religious views are in conflict with Mr Shamsher’s.
