On Sunday, a man from Wadala in Mumbai was allegedly beaten up by Shiv Sena goons for dissing Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray for his comment on the December 15 police action against the Jamia Islamia rioters. Now, instead of condemning the behaviour of the party workers, MLA Aaditya Thackeray has gone ahead and called the victim a nasty, low-life troll.
CM Uddhav Thackeray had condemned the police action against the violent protestors and likened the crackdown against them to Jallianwala Bagh massacre 1919. A man, identified as Hiramani Tiwari(30) took to Facebook to criticise Thackeray for his comment.
Soon after he uploaded his post, Hiramani Tiwari started receiving threats from assorted thugs demanding him to pull down the disparaging post. Sensing threat, Tiwari deleted the post. However, on Sunday, a group led by Sena functionaries Samadhan Jukdeo and one Prakash Hasbe beat him up and shaved his head outside his Shanti Nagar residence.
Today, Aaditya Thackeray, one of the top Shiv Sena leaders and son of CM Uddhav Thackeray uploaded a Facebook post regarding the incident. Instead of condemning the lumpen behaviour of his party men, Thackeray condoned their hooliganism and ridiculed the victim of the assault by Shiv Sena members as “low-life troll”.
In a Facebook post, Thackeray sermonised that one should not take the law into one’s hand while calling out the dissenter who opposed his father’s Jallianwala Bagh remark as a “nasty, low-life troll”. He adds that ‘giving answer to such nasty, threatening, and abusive trolls should not be our job’ and these trolls are frustrated because their “irrational voices” are not heard by the country.
Taking a sly dig at the BJP, Aaditya said, “Their behaviour, has been rejected by democratic India in the recent elections and their retreat has been witnessed by the country. These are the same people who threaten people, call them names, are social media lynch mobs. They want to create disharmony and division.”
Aaditya Thackeray further added, “I understand that the remarks angered them (Sena functionaries). I understand the anger we all have when we read non-civil remarks made, against women, leaders, and communities.”
However, it a bit ironical that the man in question was a dissident who was threatened into silence by Shiv Seniks and Aaditya Thackeray himself tried to rationalise the violence against him by bracketing the dissident into the category of “nasty, low-life troll” and thereby tacitly legitimising the illicit action against him by Sena functionaries.
Furthermore, in an attempt to deflect the issue from Sena members blatantly taking the law into their hands and arbitrarily curtailing free-speech and adopting violent means to curb their critiques, Aaditya tried divert the matter by talking about abusive trolls.
Thackeray mouthed off platitudes in his Facebook post about accomplishing the goals of his party such as creating jobs, delivering promises and keeping people united while taking a swipe at the leaders(BJP) for allegedly failing to do so.
It is again ironical that a party which built its foundation on Marathi protectionism and hatred against north Indians, especially people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, is now pontificating others on “silencing the divisions, hate and working on uniting the people”.
