Three students of a madrassa in Delhi alleged that they were assaulted by a group of men when they refused to chant “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” at a park outside their school in outer Delhi’s Begumpur area.
One of the three youths, Mohd Dilkash 18-year-old, has a broken arm, said that the trio had gone to a park nearby when some men came and slapped one of his friends and asked him to say ‘Jai Mata ki’.
They said they would kill us if we don’t chant ‘Jai Mata ki`, ‘Jai Bharat’. But we didn’t say, added Dilkash.
Asked whether he did what the men demanded of them, Dilkash replied: “No, we didn’t. They didn’t give us a chance. We then called up our teacher; he came and called up police.”
His friend, who was also allegedly beaten, said he was asked to take off his cap, slapped and hit repeatedly. “They took my cap and stamped it with their feet,” he said.
When policemen reached the spot, the students reportedly said they were beaten up with sticks.
The police say there are inconsistencies in the statements of the young men. The two groups knew each other and were playing cricket when the fight started, say the police.
They also say the students initially complained that they were asked to chant “Jai Mata di” but later changed their version and claimed that they were asked to shout “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”- a slogan that has been at the centre of a political controversy in the past few weeks.
In the beginning of March, RSS head Mohan Bhagwat said that the new generation of Indians should be told to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai.’
“Now the time has come when we have to tell the new generation to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. It should be real, spontaneous and part of all-round development of the youth,” he said.
In response to Bhagwat’s comments, AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi said he will not chant “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”.
“I don’t chant that slogan. What are you going to do, Bhagwat sahab,” the Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad said, adding “I won’t utter that (slogan) even if you put a knife to my throat”.
However, Bhagwat said Monday that nobody should be forced to say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai.’
“We have to create so great an India that people will themselves say Bharat Mata Ki Jai. We don’t need to force it on anybody. We have to give direction to the world with our life. There is no need to force our system and thoughts on anyone; there should be a desire to consider the whole world as ours,” said Bhagwat.
Amid the escalating row Advani had said in Gandhinagar, “I don’t want to comment on it. This is a meaningless controversy (’yeh ek vyarth vivad hai’)”.
According to some reports, arrested gangster Chhota Rajan and his gang members started calls saying “Jai Hind” to each other, would like you to believe he is a nationalist.
