Rajasthan Assembly elections: With the elections around the corner, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot raked up an important event that shook the nation in 2022. The Udaipur tailor was murdered on June 28 last year by two cleaver-wielding men who accused him of insulting Islam. Gehlot had also claimed that those behind Kanhaiya Lal's murder last year were "BJP people", who had been freed from police detention days before the incident under the party's pressure.
The CM said that the accused should have been hanged by now and that the NIA probe was not progressing the way it should be.
Hitting back at the BJP for trying to make the Kanhaiya Lal murder case a poll issue, he claimed the accused had links with the BJP and the investigation, which is being done by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), was delayed in view of polls. “The accused should have been hanged by now,” he said. “I think (investigation) was delayed because elections were coming, and they (BJP) will keep talking about it. That is why NIA is not progressing the way it should have, this is my doubt,” he said. The chief minister said the accused were held by police in a different case earlier but alleged that the BJP got them released. He also said that the accused were arrested by the Rajasthan Police in two hours but the NIA took over the case. After the incident, Gehlot said he had expected that BJP and Congress leaders would work together so that communal riots don't take place.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also accused the ruling Congress in Rajasthan of sympathising with terrorists, recalling at a poll rally here the murder of tailor Kanhaiya Lal in this city last year. "The murder of Kanhaiya Lal ji is a big stain on the state government. Such a heinous incident happened in Udaipur because there is a Congress government which sympathizes with terrorists," the prime minister said.
