'Pre-meditated planning' behind Dadri lynching: Minorities panel

NEW DELHI: National Commission for Minorities suspects there was "pre-meditated planning" behind the beef lynching incident in Dadri and termed "disturbing" controversial statements by politicians to "make capital out of such outrages".

In an apparent criticism of BJP leaders who made controversial comments after visiting Bishada village, where 52-year-old Mohd Iqlakh was lynched over a rumour that he had eaten and stored beef, NCM said such statements further "vitiate" the relations between different communities.

These should be stopped at all cost or "things will go out of hand", added NCM, which had a three-member team headed by its chairperson Naseem Ahmad making a visit to Bishada village.

"The team feels that a crowd of large numbers appearing within minutes of an announcement from temple's loudspeaker and at a time when most villagers claimed they were asleep seems to point to some pre-meditated planning.

"The facts as reported to the NCM team point strongly that the whole episode was the result of planning in which a sacred place like temple was used for exhorting people of one community to attack a hapless family," says a report prepared by the three-member team.

NCM said it will be "quite an understatement" to say that the killing was merely an accident "as has been claimed even by some persons in authority" -- a clear reference to a statement by Union Minister Mahesh Sharma and some other BJP leaders.

It added that what is more disturbing is that responsible persons converge at the place of any such incident and make irresponsible statements that further vitiates relations between communities.

"All the political establishments need to counsel their cadres and sympathisers to desist from making irresponsible statements and making capital out of such outrages," it said.

"The malaise of moral policing" is spreading fast, especially in western UP, it said while seeking vigilance of and curbs on the use of social media, claiming it was being extensively used to flare up communal passions.