Throwing its weight behind the anti-CAA rioters who wreaked mayhem in the state of Uttar Pradesh, the official Twitter handle of All India Mahila Congress posted a tweet slamming the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for the action taken against the violent protestors by the UP Police.
Along with demonising Yogi Adityanath, the tweet posted by Congress, which has now been removed, also contained a distorted map of India. The entire Jammu and Kashmir union territory and Ladakh union territory along with the parts under illegal occupation of Pakistan were conspicuously absent from the map.
The picture not only had parts of Jammu and Kashmir missing, but Mahila Congress also ended up insulting India by showing Yogi Adityanath ‘hanging’ the country with a noose.
In an attempt to align with the rampaging mob that caused grave damages to public property and left a bevy of policemen injured during the protests against the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act, the Congress party proceeded to demonise the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister for sanctioning punitive action against the hoodlums who carried out illegal activities under the garb of peaceful protests.
Congress had asserted through the tweet that the entire country, especially Uttar Pradesh, is in the grips of violence because of the alleged heavy-handed approach of the government. It stated that Yogi government is scheming intrigues in full glory against its own people and innocents are losing their lives. This was, apparently, in reference to 19 deaths that happened in Uttar Pradesh after the anti-CAA riots rocked several parts of the state.
Yogi Adityanath had already hinted that he has zero tolerance for the unruly behaviour of the mob indulging in arson and vandalism. In an unprecedented crackdown against the lumpen elements, the Yogi government arrested 1113 people after filing 327 cases related to violence. The state government has also issued notices to 372 people to recover damages to public infrastructure by seizing their properties.
Besides, an organised smear campaign was ran against the UP police alleging them of wantonly employing violent means to suppress ‘peaceful protests’ stages by the opposers of the CAA. However, this was debunked by the UP police themselves by releasing videos and photos that conclusively implicated the rioters.
In one of the videos from AMU, charged-up rioters can be seen breaking down the gate of the AMU as against the claim made by the sympathisers of the rioters that UP police broke it down. In another image circulated by Firozabad police, stones and bricks placed on the roofs of the houses can be seen, effectively vindicating the police stance that the protests were diligently planned to incite violence and anarchy.
However, despite the overwhelming evidence incriminating the rioters, the Congress party has chosen to stand in solidarity with those who exhibited absolute disregard for the law of the land and actively took part in carrying out riots and instigating violence against the law enforcement agencies.
It must be remembered that Congress functionaries have been arrested from several places where Muslim mobs went on a rampage. The anti-CAA riot in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad had taken an ugly turn a frenzied Muslim mob went on a rampage and indulged in indiscriminate stone-pelting against the police personnel in the Shah-e-Alam area. A part of the Muslim mob had also tried to lynch a policeman who had stumbled while running from the frenzied mob throwing stones. The Ahmedabad Police had arrested Congress Corporator Shehzad Khan Pathan along with 32 others for carrying out the deadly attack during anti-CAA riots on police personnel. They have been booked for attempt to murder, rioting and assaulting police.
The Uttar Pradesh Director-General of Police (DGP) OP Singh has also said that radical Islamic groups and mainstream political parties could have been involved in orchestrating riots across the state during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests.
He had said that members of radical Islamic organisations – Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political front, Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), including political parties like Samajwadi Party were involved in instigating Muslim mobs to indulge in violence across the state during the anti-CAA protests.
Essentially, with that insulting post, Congress is now siding with radical Islamists and in all probability, trying to gloss over the fact that Congress functionaries have been arrested in connection to the violence in different states. In Jamia violence too, a Congress leader was named in the charge sheet.
In addition, the omission of entire Jammu and Kashmir, let alone the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh betrays the subconscious stand espoused by Congress vis-a-vis the Himalayan state. Perhaps, the Congress party does not consider the state of Jammu and Kashmir, including the illegally held Pakistan, occupied Kashmir as an integral part of the country.
This stance is in consonance with Congress stalwart Shashi Tharoor’s stand, who recently shared an image of Indian map with omitted parts of Jammu and Kashmir. In a tweet, Shashi Tharoor has posted an infographic related to a ‘Bharat Bachao’ protest rally in Kozhikode, Kerala led by the Congress party against the Citizenship Amendment Act. However, in a hurry to ‘protest’ against the government, Tharoor undermined the territorial integrity of the country by sharing the map of India while leaving out certain parts of Jammu and Kashmir.
