BJP leader's comment on Ishrat Jahan outrages women

New Delhi, July 8: Over 100 women have sought an apology from BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi for making sexist remarks on Ishrat Jahan, the 19-year-old college student, who was killed by the police on June 15, nine years ago, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

They have signed a petition seeking Lekhi's apology and sent it to the chairperson of the National Commission for Women for taking appropriate action.

The BJP leader recently said on an English news channel that Ishrat was travelling with "men unrelated to her" and backed it up by uttering that the deceased woman was fit for being a terrorist since she had come from a deprived background.

The Ishrat Jahan death case has turned out into a major reason of polarisation in Indian politics ever since the CBI filed its chargesheet claiming that Ishrat and the three men accompanying her were killed in a fake encounter.

While this has encouraged the Congress and other parties to attack Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his administration, the revelations that terror leader David Coleman Headley had reportedly remarked that Ishrat was a terrorist and that India's home ministry had also arrived at a similar conclusion in 2009 have helped the BJP to counterattack.

The ruling UPA has also been accused of playing one investigative agency against another (CBI against the IB) in the case, hence putting India's security apparatus in risk.

OneIndia News