Dadri lynching accused seen at Yogi Adityanath rally

Lucknow, Apr 01: The accused in the Dadri lynching case were seen sitting in the front row of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rally addressed by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Bishahra village of Dadri area on Sunday.

Four of them, including key accused in the lynching case Vishal Singh Rana, the son of local BJP party worker Sanjay Rana, were seen cheering from the front row when Yogi Adityanath addressed an election rally in Bisada village of Greater Noida, where the killing took place.

55-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq was dragged out of his home and lynched by a mob in September 2015 over suspicion that he had killed a cow and stored its meat in his freezer. His son Danish was also beaten up brutally.

Vishal had been charged under IPC Sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder), among others. However, the charges are yet to be framed, with the case pending in a fast-track court. The next date for hearing is April 10. Puneet was not named in the FIR but was arrested three months later on the basis of Akhlaq's daughter Shaista's statement.

At the rally, Adityanath accused the previous governments of dividing people on the basis of caste and indulging in "politics of appeasement", unlike the Modi government that worked for all. "Earlier there was the Congress at the Centre whose supremo had said that a certain community has the first right on the country's resources and by saying this they divided the majority, and so did the SP and BSP governments."

The CM also accused the previous governments of "harassing" the majority community by lodging "false" cases against them and thus creating a "breeding ground" for riots.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi took a jibe at the BJP for allowing a lynching accused at the rally. He said on Twitter: "The BJP's rally organizers have previously prevented people from attending rallies if they were wearing black; but a man accused of such a heinous crime gets first-row tickets."