Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, March 30: About 200 activists of the BJP Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP, on Wednesday created ruckus and vandalised property outside the official residence of the Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to protest against his allegedly “mocking the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits.”
The protest was against the remarks Kejriwal made in the Delhi Assembly last week on the controversial film “The Kashmir Files” which has received the blessings of the prime minister Narendra Modi and has been granted tax-free by the BJP-ruled states for larger public viewing.
The film produced and directed by Vivek Agnihotri is based on the alleged genocide of Kashmiri Pandits by the local Muslim population aided by the Pakistan-based terrorists to evict the Hindus from Jammu and Kashmir in the early nineties. Its cast included Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty, Pallavi Joshi, Darshan Kumar and several other top Bollywood names and was released in theatres on March 11.
The BJP Yuva Morcha workers assembled outside the residence of Kejriwal to protest against his remarks on the film which the BJP leadership had described as “mocking” the genocide of the Hindus in Kashmir.
After the incident, while the Aam Aadmi Party claimed the attack as an “attempt by the BJP to kill Kejriwal” after suffering humiliating defeats in the elections, the Morcha leaders said they did not mind being labelled “anti-social” by the AAP if protesting against mockery of the sufferings of Hindus was an anti-social act.
“Antisocial elements attacked the house of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. They broke CCTV cameras and security barriers. Boom barriers on the gate have also been broken,” Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted. “BJP goons kept vandalizing the house of CM Kejriwal. Instead of stopping them, the BJP police brought them to the door of the house,” he said in another tweet.
Terming it as a “premeditated conspiracy”, Sisodia alleged that since the BJP has failed to defeat Arvind Kejriwal in the elections, they were “trying to kill him.” He added that politics is just an excuse and this is a clear criminal case. “Today, BJP’s goons reached Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s house in the presence of the police. They aren’t able to defeat him in elections so they want to kill him,” he said.
Responding to Sisodia’s allegations calling them anti-social, the Delhi BJP spokesman Tejinder Pal Singh Bagga said “if opposing the humiliation of Kashmiri Hindus is termed to be an anti-social element, then they were anti-social.” “If asking for an apology on Kejriwal’s statement on the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus is equivalent to being an anti-social element, then yes, we are anti-social elements,” he said. Bagga, however, denied that they had resorted to vandalism.
BJYM national president Tejasvi Surya and Bagga had led a protest during which the incident took place. The protest was against Kejriwal’s remarks in the Delhi Assembly last week in which he had asked the BJP leaders not promote a commercial movie in which many of events shown were false, fabricated and exaggerated. He had also claimed that filmmakers were earning money by using the suffering of Kashmiri Pandits. He had refused to grant the film tax exemption in Delhi telling the BJP leaders to advice Agnihotri to put the film on YouTube to enable people to view the film free of cost.
Detailing on the incident, DCP (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi said, “Today at around 11.30 am onwards, a dharna was started by around 150-200 protesters of the BJP Yuva Morcha outside the CM’s residence at Link Road near IP College, against the remarks of the chief minister in Delhi Vidhan Sabha regarding the movie ‘The Kashmir Files.’ At around 1 pm, some of the protesters breached two barricades and reached outside the CM’s residence, where they created ruckus and shouted slogans. They were carrying a small box of paint from which they threw paint on the gate. In the imbroglio, a boom barrier arm was also found vandalised as also a CCTV camera. Police personnel immediately removed them from the spot and detained around 70 persons. Legal action is being initiated,” said Kalsi.
Several senior Aam Aadmi Party leaders have accused the Delhi police of facilitating vandalism and violence by allowing BJP leaders and workers to reach the Chief Minister’s house. Visuals from the spot show a large group of people carrying BJP flags and placards condemning “insult” to Kashmiri Pandits clashing with the police at the barricade placed outside the Chief Minister’s residence. Many of them can be seen attempting to jump through the security cordon.
The feature film, which has received unprecedented government backing and high praises from the leaders of the party in power including the prime minister, is based on the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the Kashmir valley during the height of militancy. Riding on overwhelming government support and tax breaks from BJP-ruled states across the country, the controversial movie has become a runaway box office success and is racing to ₹ 300 crore in collections. It has also come under bitter criticism as it’s unprecedented for the government to put its weight behind a commercial movie. Moreover, the sensitive political nature of the film and charges of inaccuracy/deliberate misrepresentation of facts has led to accusations of the government indulging in propaganda. The Centre has provided ‘Y’ category security cover to director Vivek Agnihotri with CRPF cover pan India.
