AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday stepped into the controversy over the sensational Shraddha Walkar murder case by claiming that BJP is politicizing the issue and it is not a matter of ‘love jihad’.
“BJP politics over this is completely wrong. It's not an issue of love jihad but of exploitation, abuse against a woman and that is how it should be viewed and condemned,” said Hyderabad MP.
Shraddha Walkar murder case was echoed in BJP’s poll campaigns in MCD election in national capital. Assam Chief Minister and BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma had raised the issue during a road show in Delhi.
Sarma on Sunday demanded a stringent law against "Love Jihad" as he raised the issue of the gruesome Mehrauli killing while campaigning for the municipal polls in northeast Delhi which was struck by communal riots in 2020.
"Love Jihad" is a term often used by the BJP and Hindu right-wing leaders to refer to illegal religious conversions allegedly through force or deceit.
As the country has got a law against triple talaq, "we need a law against Love Jihad and also for a common civil code", Sarma said during the BJP's 'Vijay Sankalp' roadshow in northeast Delhi's Ghonda area for the December 4 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls.
He also appealed to people to shun "anti-Hindu and corrupt leaders such as (Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convener) Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia", alleging they were symbols of "division in society" and not development.
Raising the Mehrauli murder case, he said, "You saw a few days ago that a person Aaftab cut Shraddha into 35 pieces. Love Jihad about which we used to read in newspapers has now reached our cities and metros.
Aaftab Poonawala allegedly strangled Shraddha Walkar, 27, on May 18 and sawed her body into nearly three dozen pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in south Delhi's Mehrauli before dumping them across the city over several days.
Owaisi Vs BJP on Uniform Civil Code
Meanwhile, Owaisi had also claimed BJP is raising the issue of Uniform Civil Code to get votes in the forthcoming Gujarat Assembly elections and to push its Hindutva agenda.
Addressing an election rally on Saturday at Vadgam in Banaskantha district of Gujarat, where the Assembly polls are due this year-end, the Hyderabad MP also asked if the "exclusion" of Muslims and Christians from income tax benefits for Hindu Undivided Family was not against the principle of equality.
The BJP government in Gujarat on Saturday announced that it would constitute a committee under a retired High Court judge to evaluate all aspects of the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the state.
Owaisi said the Union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had told the Supreme Court that enacting the UCC was the Centre's purview and not that of the states.
"Isn't it true that Babasaheb Ambedkar said the Uniform Civil Code should be voluntary and not mandatory?..
.But the BJP only wants to move ahead with its Hindutva agenda and it has the habit of raising such issues before elections to get votes," he alleged.
(With PTI input)
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