Rajasthan based RSS worker and owner of a medical store tried to commit suicide by self-immolation him on Sunday. 40-year-old Raghuveer Sharan Agarwal set himself on fire near Amrapali Circle between 5:30 am – 5:45 am, said Bhopal Singh Bhati, the station house officer of Vaishali Nagar police station.
As per reports, after setting himself ablaze, Raghuveer Sharan ran for about 100 meters chanting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai.” The onlookers tried to deluge the fire and rushed him to SMS hospital where the hospital authority Dr SS Yadav confirmed that Raghuveer Sharan had 80% burns and his condition was critical.
The Deputy Commissioner of Police of Jaipur West, Ashok Gupta stated that the victim in his statement to the police stated two reasons for taking the extreme step. “He was facing some family issues and he was upset with the prevailing situation in the country and the incidences of caste-based clashes,” he said.
Recently the country witnessed violence during the Bharat Bandh called by some Dalit organisation to protest against the so-called dilution of the SC/ST Act. The violence claimed 10 lives. Two BSP Leaders have been arrested so far in UP for being the chief instigators of the violence.
The mainstream media has also jumped on the bandwagon and seems to have tried its best to instigate caste based hate. Recently, fake news about a Dalit being killed for owning a horse was peddled by the media. It was later found that he was killed because of personal issues and his caste was of no consequence to the murder.
BSP supremo Mayawati has also seen a political opportunity in this strife and has made a U-turn with respect to her previous stand on the SC/ST Act.
In fact, not only the caste card but India saw how a farmers march was hijacked by communists to manufacture social strife.
While the political dispensation and the mainstream media seems to be maintaining silence over this incident, one wonders if the deliberate attempts to manipulate caste based fault lines in the society for petty political gains will now stop.
