Twist in Udaipur murder, BJP in damage control

NT Correspondent
New Delhi

The brutal murder of a tailor in Udaipur took a curious turn on Saturday with the emergence of photos that allegedly exposed one of the killer’s links to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Riaz Attari and Gos Mohammad were arrested on Tuesday, hours after they killed the tailor, Kanhaiya Lal, with a cleaver at his shop for supporting suspended party leader Nupur Sharma. A local BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader had described Attari as a “dedicated worker of the BJP” in a Facebook post Less than two years ago.

Photos of Attari posing with BJP leader in the Rajasthan assembly Gulab Chand Kataria and senior Udaipur BJP leader Ravindra Shrimali were seen on the Facebook timelines. Other posts show Attari attending BJP events wearing a party scarf and being garlanded by Chainwala and Tahir.

Even as Congress latched on to media reports and social media posts to draw the connection, the BJP vehemently denied links to Attari. “We have no links to either of the accused,” Sadiq Khan, the chief of the BJP’s minority wing in the state.

The Congress alleged that one of the main accused is a “BJP member” and asked whether the Centre had moved quickly to transfer the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to sweep it under the carpet. The claims drew consternation from the BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya who dismissed them as “fake news”.