A spate of legislation and rabble surrounding 'love jihad' is justified on grounds of allegedly increasing instances of Muslim men marrying Hindu women. It therefore needs to be seen whether there is, or ever has been, any real evidence to support these claims.
The Wire consolidated 34 publicly available speeches over three months (between the first week of November and the first week of February), and analysed the patterns of religiously polarised speech there.
The choice of Kairana for Shah's first political programme in Uttar Pradesh after the assembly poll dates were announced is significant, given the BJP's allegations and campaign in the area in the 2017.
Meerut: Vineet Agarwal, a trader, cannot forget the day when five men barged into their shop in Kairana in 2014 and pumped bullets into his two brothers, Shiv Kumar and Rajender Kumar. They both died on the spot. Just a few days before the incident, dreaded gangster Muqeem Kala had made an extortion call for Rs 10 lakh. The targeted family had approached the police but with little relief.
On learning about Kala’s murder in Chitrakoot jail on Friday, Agarwal breathed a sigh of relief and said, “You reap what you sow.”
Ajai Jain, another trader in Kairana, said, “It is a big relief for traders in Kairana.”