NEW DELHI: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, a pracharak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has been honest: the gang rape of women, the double murder and the gang rape of two sisters over allegations of beef in biryani in Mewat were just “small issues”.

And in saying so sent out a clear signal to the police and the investigating agencies that justice was not really required in these cases, that were of no urgent import.

It is befitting that Khattar spoke at a celebration of 50 years of Haryana perhaps, an indication of current polity when asked about the CBI probe into the heinous incidents at Mewat he said, "These are non-issues. I don't pay much attention to these small issues. Today we should be talking about Swarna Jayanti."

When reporters persisted, the elected Chief Minister of Haryana said, "These were petty issues compared to golden jubilee celebrations and could take place anywhere in the country."

(Report on the incidents he was referring to can be read at http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/NewsDetail/index/1/8683/Eid-In-Mewat-Terrified-Muslims-Shut-Shop-As--Police-Turn-Cow-Vigilantes)

Meanwhile while Samajwadi party chief Mulayam Singh has turned on his own son Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh, the communal forces on an overdrive in the state are having a field day. Rumours of eve teasing, unsubstantiated, swept through Bijnore this time, and despite reports of heightened communal tension there was no preventive action by the state administration,

Violence between Jats and Muslims erupted, with the Indian Express reporting that 12 calls to the cops and the local MLA by a the brother of the village pradhan, Anees Ahmad went unanaswered. Meanwhile the mob collected, fired at a Muslim family, and three lay dead with the police staying away.

There has been little to no reaction from Lucknow with the Samajwadi first family allowing the right wing mobs full control, unchallenged. Mulayam Singh instead is fighting his own son, stripping him of powers and refusing to allow the state government to run.

The result is that not just the party but the administration, in particular the police that has never been renowned for secular credentials in UP, has stopped listening to the CM whose authority has been seriously eroded by his father and uncles. This is evident in the Bijnore incident, where despite the lessons of Muzaffarnagar that is still simmering three years later after the violence first erupted in a similar fashion in 2013, the administration ignored the phone calls, and the police did not respond. No one has been held accountable and with no reaction from Lucknow as yet.

This when the state is on the verge of an election, and those being hit are said to constitute the vote bank for the Samajwadi party.

The Hindutva brigade through the ghar wapsi and love jihad campaigns sowed the seads of devisiveness across western UP, with the generated hate spreading to engulf new cities and villages.

In Haryana the support for the violence is complicit as evident in the remarks of the Chief Minister entrusted to maintain law and order; in Uttar Pradesh it is implicit as from Muzaffarnagar to Bijnore, a journey of three years dotted with recurring violence in the region, the Samajwadi party and its police has ensured little to no action is taken to bring the perpetrators to book. The victims of Muzaffarnagar are now internally displaced persons, living in the squalor of camps.

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NATASHA SINGH