PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said that the silence of people in the face of hate speech in the country only emboldens those who seek to divide society. She was referring to alleged hate speech by Hindu Raksha Dal president Lalit Sharma, who reportedly targeted Muslim women and unborn children.
Activist Shabnam Hashmi, posting via The Observer Post, quoted Hindu Raksha Dal president Lalit Sharma as demanding the killing of four Muslims for every Hindu killed, and saying they would “try to pull out and kill even the child in the womb.” She also said that in Dehradun’s Bairagiwala area, Sharma made these remarks following the June 13 death of Vinod Kashyap, a Hindu nationalist leader, in a clash over irrigation water. According to her post, VHP-Bajrang Dal leader Aman Swedia also called for “blood for blood” and accused the entire Muslim community.
Mehbooba Mufti retweeted the post, saying: “This is what the BJP’s so-called Viksit Bharat looks like—hate speech normalized to the extent that even unborn Muslim children are threatened. Homes and mosques are demolished with impunity, while Muslims, Christians, Dalits, and Adivasis are increasingly pushed to the margins. Ongoing silence in the face of such rhetoric only emboldens those who seek to divide our society.”
(With inputs from PTI)