BJP slams Kerala CM for giving crime data based on religion over 'narcotic jihad' controversy

Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 24: The Kerala BJP slammed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for giving the crime data in narcotic cases based on religion. The saffron outfit questioned the minister from where he got the data while accusing him of polarising society to get political mileage.

"How can a Chief Minister present the data of a crime based on religion? He did not tell which agency has compiled the figures-whether it was the data of the Crime Records Bureau or it was with the Home Department," K Surendran, Kerala BJP chief, is quoted as saying in a press meet by the PTI.

The BJP leader said that person holding such a position should not come up with such data and wondered whether there was a history of presenting crime figures based on religion in Kerala. Surendran asked how the Chief Minister came to know about the religion of the accused and questioned whether he came to conclusion based on the names of the accused.

"We want to know whether the state government keeps data of crimes based on the religion of the accused...Are the figures, presented by the Chief Minister, authentic? Why did he put such a figure before the people? He should not have done such a thing which would communally polarise people," the BJP chief said.

The BJP and the ruling parties have been engaged at war-of-words after a Catholic bishop made sensational claims of Jihadis trapping non-Muslim women and particularly Christian women in love and narcotic jihad, recently.

While the saffron party has accused the government of turning blind eye to reality for the fear of facing wrath from a community, the ruling party has attacked the BJP of concentrating their fire on Muslims and tactically trying to rally the Christian clergy onto their side.

CM Pinarayi Vijayan revealed data in a press meet where he claimed that among the 5,422 accused in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 2,700 were Hindus, 1,869 were Muslims and 853 Christians to drive home his point that narcotics crime is not linked to any religion.