AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has stoked yet another controversy by raising suspicion over government’s intention of clearing the Shaheen Bagh stretch where a protest has been ongoing for over 50 days against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) following the Delhi polls.
Speaking to ANI, Owaisi asserted that there are indications from the government that the Shaheen Bagh area will be cleared following the Delhi polls on February 8. “They might as well shoot them and turn Shaheen Bagh into Jallianwala Bagh. This might happen. One of the BJP ministers has asked to shoot the bullets at the protesters. The government should answer as to who is radicalising,” Owaisi said.
Regarding NRC and NPR, Owaisi asked the government to clearly state that the NRC will not be implemented until 2024.
Watch: @asadowaisi remember ‘Hitler & Mussolini’ era in India. The way politics is going on in connection with #CAA_NRC_NPR protest. He speaks in #Parlament pic.twitter.com/LcYKYfbif2
— Ashoke Raj (@Ashoke_Raj) February 5, 2020
“Government should not beat around the bush and clearly state that they are not going to implement NRC till 2024. Why have they earmarked Rs 3900 crores for NPR? I am a student of history and I know where such acts lead to. During his reign, Hitler too had commissioned census twice and after that, he pushed the jews in a gas chamber. Mussolini too did the same in Italy. I don’t want our country to go in that way,” Owaisi said.
Ever since the enactment of Citizenship Amendment Act, Owaisi has been indulging in fear-mongering about the new law along with the NRC and NPR to continue fuelling misgivings about them amongst the Muslims. Earlier, Owaisi had stated that NPR, which was first carried out by Congress in 2011, is the first step towards NRC, despite Union Home Minister Amit Shah categorically stating that there is no plan for a nationwide NRC as of then.
This is not the first time that politicians have resorted to trivialising Jallianwala massacre to make petty political gains. Earlier, Shiv Sena supremo and Maha Vikas Aghadi chief minister Uddhav Thackeray too likened police action in Jamia to Jallianwala Bagh incident. Thackeray was then at the receiving end of criticism by many for his misplaced comparison of action against anti-CAA rioters, vandals and stone-pelters to barbaric firing unleashed by British troops in Jallianwala Bagh in 1919.
