Kolkata: West Bengal Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said that he was performing his duty as a ‘Hindu’ by backing the three men accused of assaulting Muslim vendors in Kolkata.
Three Muslim vendors including 50-year-old Sheikh Riyajul and 60-year-old Salauddin were selling non-vegetarian food at a Gita chanting event in Kolkata on Sunday when they were allegedly attacked by a group accusing them of being ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’ before throwing away their food items.
The Sanatan Sanskriti Sansad, a collective of monks and Hindutva outfits, organized the event Panch Lokkho Konthe Gitapath (Gita recitation in five lakh voices) which was attended by several BJP leaders, including Adhikari and Samik Bhattacharyya.
Three men, identified as Soumik Golder, Tarun Bhattacharya and Swarnendu Chakraborty whom Suvendu Adhikari felicitated on Thursday, had been arrested on Wednesday in connection with the incident and granted bail later by a city court on personal bonds of Rs 1,000 each.
They were charged with ‘unlawful assembly, wrongful restraint, voluntarily causing hurt, outraging religious feelings, criminal intimidation and mischief’ according to Scroll.
Sharing on social media the images of felicitating Soumik Golder, Tarun Bhattacharya and Swarnendu Chakraborty, the BJP leader Adhikari said he wanted to tell Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that she could not ‘suppress ‘sanatanis’ by unleashing your loyalist police on them’.
Suvendu Adhikari further asserted that in the fight to protect ‘religion’, ‘I stand with every Hindu, along with countless supporters of Hindutva’.
Later Adhikari told media that voice of justice still prevailed silently in the country, PTI reported.
Alongside questioning the arrest of three men Adhikari said: ‘I am a legislator, leader of the Opposition, a BJP member – all that comes later. First, I am a Hindu. If my Hindu brothers and sisters are in trouble, my primary duty is to protect my ‘dharma’.