No political visit, no human rights’ hue and cry and no crusader for minority justice has bothered to talk about Savan Rathod’s murder or even tried to visit his family
It’s an irony that in a country where Hindus are in majority nobody talks for their rights and if anyone who talks for Hindu issues is termed as communal. Sometimes it seems that Hindus are second class citizens in their own country.
When a Muslim died in a hate crime in Dadri, the whole nation was declared intolerant. When Rohith Vemula committed suicide, it was declared that dalits were being targeted under Modi Government and they portrayed the entire incident as a anti-dalit drive but when a Hindu boy (Savan Rathod) was burnt alive by Muslim men, no protest, no outrage, no debates were there. Even no so-called human sympathiser and politicians (Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal) discussed it. The question is, Why this indifference?
Rohith Vemula’s death made headlines on front page in most of the newspapers and breathless debates on many of the news channels. Students from across the country came on street to protest against government but nobody questioned the death of Savan Rathod, only because he was a Hindu and killed by Muslims.
The death of Savan was not an accident. Savan Rathod was burnt alive by three Muslim men. According to newspaper reports, their names are Ibrahim Mehboob Shaikh, Zuber Tamboli and Imran Tamboli. Zuber Tamboli is a known history-sheeter and has several cases against him.
In a video statement recorded in the hospital just before he died, Savan clearly says his killers burnt him alive just because he is a Hindu. His lawyer Ramesh Rathod shot the video which he has now submitted to the police. The video shows him as saying: “I was working with my family in Pandhapur. I had a dispute with them and came to Pune looking for work…While I was urinating, three persons objected and asked me my name. I said Savan Rathod. They asked me if I am Hindu? I said ‘yes’. Then they poured something over me from a can and set me on fire.”
It is said that Savan had come to Pune a week ago in search of a job following a fight with his father, an unskilled brick kiln worker in Pandharpur, Maharashtra.
There are many cases where Hindus were either killed or raped by the Muslims. But these cases are deliberately ignored by the media and so-called secular political parties. The problem is everybody wants the secular (pseudo) tag. There is a mad race to appease the Muslim vote bank at the cost of the lives of Hindus and the recent incident of Savan Rathod and Malda are the best examples.
Recently, a 40-year-old woman committed suicide after two Muslims raped her and circulated the rape video on social media. Another woman suffered the similar fate. Both these cases happened in Muzaffarnagar where there were recent riots due to similar crimes by Muslims. No television debates were conducted to discuss these incidents. It is very painful to see this biased approach of the mainstream media and ‘secular’ political parties. There were no political visits, no human rights’ hue and cry and no crusader for minority justice has bothered to talk about Savan Rathod’s murder or even tried to visit his family. Nishant Kr Azad
