National Investigation Agency (NIA) has dismissed the ‘terror outfit’ angle in the Kanhaiya Lal murder case.
The probing agency denied the involvement of any terrorist organisation in the brutal murder of a Hindu tailor by Islamists on Thursday.
Interestingly, many people including the Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot had made insinuations that there could be some terrorist organisation behind the incident.
NIA said that some media reports about the links of the two accused with some terrorist outfit are based on speculation. It also held that the preliminary inquiry suggests that there may not be any terrorist group involved in the murder but a terror gang.
Riyaz Akhtari and Ghouse Mohammad, the accused in the brutal murder of Kanhaiya Lal are to be presented in a special NIA court in Jaipur either on June 30 or July 1. They will be questioned in Rajasthan and not be brought to Delhi. The NIA also informed that there will be many group members of the accused and not just two. A six to ten-member NIA team is supposed to investigate the case under the supervision of an Inspector General and a Deputy Inspector General ranks officer.
Earlier, many speculations were being made about the involvement of some terrorist outfit and Pakistan in this murder. According to some media reports, the killer Riyaz was attached to the Pakistani terror outfit Dawat-e-Islami. This claim was reportedly made by Rajasthan’s Director General of Police ML Lathar. NDTV reported that the beheading was inspired by ISIS. NDTV did not directly mention that this is Islamic terrorism but tried to separate Islam by including the ISIS angle in this case.
On Thursday, June 30, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot reached Udaipur to meet deceased Kanhaiya Lal’s family who was killed by two Islamic assailants over his post in support of Nupur Sharma. While talking to the media, Gehlot glossed over the Islamist communal crime as an ‘act of terror’ with connections outside the country.
Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot was seen patting his back upon the ‘swift’ arrest of the murderers of Kanhaiya Lal, a Hindu tailor who was killed in his own shop on June 28 in Udaipur. Talking to the media, Gehlot said, “We found out within one night that this case has connections internationally. This tells us that this incident is an act of terror. This has nothing to do with two religions fighting with each other.”
However, the killers themselves had done no such ambiguity or whitewashing. They had made it perfectly clear that they were killing Kanhaiya Lal ‘in the name of Allah’, because (by sharing a post in support of Nupur Sharma) he had insulted Prophet Muhammad, as per them, and had added that anyone who insults Prophet Muhammad has to be beheaded.
CM Ashok Gehlot who was seeing glorifying the ‘swift’ action of the Police against the perpetrators, also made a bizarre and problematic claim about the nature of the violence. By calling it merely an act of ‘terror’ with international linkages, Gehlot whitewashed the fact that the incident was an Islamic act of terror. The religious angle in the case cannot be subsumed as admittedly it was revenge for the supposed ‘blasphemy’ committed by Kanhaiya Lal in supporting Nupur Sharma. Now, NIA has also denied the involvement of any terrorist organization in this murder.
(This piece is taken with gratitude from OpIndia)
