The Hathras case took a political turn yesterday after Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra decided to indulge in theatrics. The brother-sister duo embarked on a journey to Hathras to meet the victim’s family. When their motorcade was stopped owing to section 144 being imposed in that area, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi hopped out of their vehicle and started walking along with scores of Congress workers, shouting slogans against UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
While they were walking, they were again stopped by the police. Congress workers indulged in a scuffle with the police officials who were merely trying to do their job and ended up injuring a lady officer. Rahul Gandhi tried to show how he was being “manhandled” by the Uttar Pradesh police by falling to the ground after carefully selecting a clean spot. The scene that was enacted by Rahul Gandhi would be hilarious if the situation itself was not so tragic.
However, there seems to be a method to Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi’s madness after all. One has to wonder if using the tragic fate of a young girl to hit out at the Yogi government is their only aim, or is there more than what meets the eye?
In the recent past, several cases of love jihad have been reported from Uttar Pradesh where Muslims were trapping, converting, and in some cases, even raping and killing Hindu girls. In the last 2 months, 20 cases of Love Jihad were reported from Uttar Pradesh and several other states. One of the recent cases were particularly brutal where a Hindu girl was beheaded after she refused to convert to Islam.
The Yogi Adityanath government had formed an SIT to probe these cases and significant headway was made in the investigation. It was reported that the police is almost at the cusp of breaking the mystery behind the nexus.
It is obvious that the sentiment runs high after several such cases are reported. In the meantime, the Hathras incident took place, which was not a very cut and dry case. On the one hand, initial statements of the mother indicated that it was a case of personal rivalry between the families. In fact, in the initial video statements, there was no mention of rape by the mother or the victim. Later, the media reported that she was gang-raped and the statement was later added by the family of the victim. The police then came out to say that the medical reports of the victim do not indicate rape and the cause of death as indicated in the medical report is strangulation and injury to the neck and spine.
Congress has always proved itself to be political opportunists. When the unfortunate Hathras incident happened, the Congress party, running out of issues and options sniffed one and started politicising the issue. The aim here could be two-pronged – One was to cash in on the sentiment after cases of love jihad were being reported from Uttar Pradesh and two, to whitewash their own image after the debacle of Nirbhaya case 2012. The latter would obviously serve the former.
While Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra indulged in their usual theatrics, their trusted allies took to Twitter to start comparing the two heinous incidents. Purported Journalist with The Wire, Rohini Singh, took to Twitter to “compare” the two incidents – Nirbhaya and Hathras – and talk about how well the former was handled by the Congress party.
It is never right to compare two rapes. But let’s compare how the Nirbhaya and the Hathras cases have been handled by two different govts. Nirbhaya was admitted in Safdarjung hospital. The head of the party in power Sonia Gandhi visited the family at the hospital….
— Rohini Singh (@rohini_sgh) October 1, 2020
Rohini Singh first says it is wrong to compare two cases, but then, goes on to write an entire thread comparing two cases which are vastly different.
Delhi police showed immense efficiency in cracking the case- a blind case at the time- and the rapists were all arrested. A new rape law was brought in. The same law that the current ADG, law and order in Uttar Pradesh, seems to know little about now it seems…
— Rohini Singh (@rohini_sgh) October 1, 2020
Singing praises of Sonia Gandhi and the Congress, she hails the fact that Sonia Gandhi met the protestors after the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case which shook the conscience of a nation. While Rohini Singh talks about Sonia Gandhi meeting the victim and the protestors, what she completely forgets to mention, surely by design, is that Sonia Gandhi met the protestors in a midnight stunt only after facing severe criticism over lathi-charging and using water cannons against the protestors.
As was the norm back in the day, and perhaps still is, the Congress party often planted news for their image management and the media happily obliged citing ‘sources’, a method Rohini Singh and her colleagues are all too familiar with. Back then as well, after facing severe criticism over the brutality heaped against the protestors, the news was planted in the media that the “government was displeased” with the police for brutalising the protestors.
There were the exact words of an India Today report:
The government has asked police commissioner Neeraj Kumar to give an explanation by Monday. Further, he has been asked to explain how the OB vans of channels entered the high-security Rajpath and India Gate without prior information. Top Congress party sources confirmed their dissatisfaction with Kumar’s handling of the entire case and the agitation.
The India Today report further said;
The government responded to the protests by unleashing policemen in riot gear who lobbed teargas canisters and resorted to lathicharge to break them up. Unfazed, the protesters lay siege to Raisina Hill throughout the day. At the end of the day, 72 people were injured, including 37 policemen of whom two sustained serious head injuries. In all, policemen fired 125 teargas shells seven times during the day. Two government vehicles, a Delhi Police bus, six public buses and two motorcycles were damaged.
While tens of people were injured by the barbarity unleashed mostly on students by the Congress government for no reason, Rohini Singh seems to recalls a very different chronology of events since she seems to believe that the Congress government handled the situation extremely well.
Further, Rohini Singh also doesn’t seem to remember the shameless conduct of Congress leaders back then.
Sonia Gandhi had remained mum when the Congress leader and former Delhi Chief Minister late Sheila Dikshit has said that the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case was “blown out of proportion” by the media. There was not a word of condemnation when her own party’s senior leader downplayed the Nirbhaya case saying that there were several cases of rape taking place across the country and that her government had no role to play in the security situations.
For the uninitiated Congress leader, late Sheila Dikshit served as the chief minister of New Delhi 15 years from 1998 to 2013 and was at the helm of affairs when the Nirbhaya case happened in the capital city.
Likewise, not a word of damnation when Congress leader Shashi Tharoor had in an insensitive remark favoured making public the identity of the Nirbhaya Gang rape victim.
In the Hathras case, not one leader is saying that the victim did not matter or why she was out in the fields by herself. Not one leader is making irresponsible statements and the investigation has been left to the police solely. In fact, thought the police has asserted that the medical report indicates no evidence of sexual assault, it is the media that is not reporting accurately thereafter.
Further, Rohini Singh says, “Nirbhaya’s family never accused anyone in the govt of putting pressure on them, threatening them. The family took their daughter home one last time & cremated her. The cremation was attended by the then CM of Delhi, MoS Home and even the state head of the opposition party, BJP”.
Nirbhaya’s family never accused anyone in the govt of putting pressure on them, threatening them. The family took their daughter home one last time & cremated her. The cremation was attended by the then CM of Delhi, MoS Home and even the state head of the opposition party, BJP.
— Rohini Singh (@rohini_sgh) October 1, 2020
Rohini Singh may have selective amnesia but the Congress government back then had not even revealed the location of the cremation after the mortal remains of Nirbhaya had been flown back to India. The cremation arrangements were made at 6:30 AM so that no crowd could gather but had to be done at 7:30 AM due to Hindu traditions, the location, was kept secret to avoid a sea of people and the media.
That the Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dixit attended the cremation is not something to be hailed, but questioned, at least for those with a sound mind. It was the CM of Delhi from Congress at the time who had said that the case is being blown out of proportion by the media. It would only be a severely compromised journalist who would see Sheila Dixit attended the cremation as an act of compassion and not as a political move to whitewash the disgusting statement made earlier.
She further takes up how the police was ‘intimidating’ the family and wonders why Nirbhaya’s mother never blamed the Congress.
Why did the mother of the victim have to beg and fall at the feet of the cops to let her take her daughter home one last time to put haldi on her before cremating her? Why did the police carry out a hurried cremation without her family present?
— Rohini Singh (@rohini_sgh) October 1, 2020
Firstly, the video where she says the cops were threatening the police was twisted by India Today, but of course, one would not expect Rohini Singh to see facts over her agenda. The police were merely saying that after the media leaves, the police will be standing with the family. There was no intimidation in the video that was aired by India Today. Secondly, what Rohini shamelessly does is take away Nirbhaya’s mother’s agency. The lady fought tooth and nail for years to seek justice for her daughter. What Rohini does here, in her desperation to exonerate the Congress party, almost makes it seem like the state did a favour by deciding to hang the rapists of her daughter, while discounting the harrowing experience she went through to ensure her daughter gets justice.
Of course, she then goes on to mouth platitudes like, “Why has UP govt hired a PR agency that is spamming everyone with how there was no rape in the Hathras case? Why threats of FIR? This sort of headline management was never seen during the previous case. Why isn’t a nation allowed to grieve?”.
There is no evidence of this. The police will come out and talk about the findings of the medical report. In fact, if there was indeed no rape, everyone should be relieved. While the girl was tragically and brutally killed by a monster, at least she was not violated. That should give some sort of hope, some closure to every one of us shocked by the incident. However, here, Rohini Singh seems almost disappointed that the girl was not humiliated (according to the police) before she was brutally killed. Perhaps at the altar of agenda, humanity has to die.
In fact, while hailing the Congress and lamenting about the BJP today, Rohini Singh conveniently forgets that it is Congress that plays politics on the dignity and corpses of our girls and not the BJP. After the Nirbhaya case in 2012, PM Modi (Then the Chief Minister of Gujarat) had gone on record to say that he will not play politics on the dignity of our women and will not get into competitive numbers like which state has more cases.
This is not the only time when Rohini Singh used the Hathras case to further her own, vile hypocrisy. Only yesterday, she had tried to shield the Congress government in Rajasthan by downplaying the horrific incidents of rape and murder there.
While one has to marvel the dedication with which Rohini Singh is trying so hard to give the “political advantage” to Congress while preying on the dead body of a young girl, brutalised only days ago, it is a testament to her mediocrity that she was not even able to do that properly. Perhaps journalists who were “made” during the Radiia scandal were propped up for this purpose alone, even if they are not very good at it.
