India not Bharat or Hindustan, but ‘Lynchistaan’: Mufti’s daughter

New Delhi: Former Jammu Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter, Iltija Mufti, slammed that India is not Bharat or Hindustan anymore, but ‘Lunchistan’. She was condemning the latest incident of mob lynching in Odisha, where a person was killed by a group of six men on the claim that the victim was Bangladeshi.

Iltija wrote on X, "Not India or Bharat nor Hindustan. Thy name is Lynchistaan," sharing a picture of the man who was lynched in Odisha.

A 19-year-old Bengali-speaking Muslim from West Bengal was lynched in Odisha’s Sambalpur district on Wednesday night. Police have arrested six people in connection with the killing.

The victim, Juyel Rana, was a resident of Chakbahadurpur village under Suti police station in Murshidabad district. Co-workers and family members alleged that he was assaulted after being suspected of being an “illegal Bangladeshi migrant.” Odisha Police, however, denied the attack was linked to such suspicions, stating that the accused and the victim were known to each other.

According to police, the incident occurred late Wednesday evening in the Shantinagar area when Juyel was returning from work. Paltu Sheikh, one of eight construction workers from Murshidabad working in Odisha, told The Indian Express that the group was at a tea stall when some individuals asked Juyel for a bidi. “They then demanded Aadhaar cards and asked where we were from. We showed our Aadhaar cards, but suddenly the group, armed with bamboo sticks, began beating us. Juyel was struck on the head,” he said.

The injured workers rushed Juyel to a hospital, where he was declared dead. Two others, Akiur Rahman and Sanowar Hossain, sustained injuries and are undergoing treatment at a hospital in Sambalpur. Paltu Sheikh said he had been working in Odisha for 12 years and had never experienced such violence before.