Jagtial incident gets communal twist; VHP, Bajrang Dal call for bandh, wary SI distances self

JAGTIAL: The controversy involving Jagtial sub-inspector Anil Kumar Yadav and his wife on one side and a Muslim mother-daughter duo on the other is taking a political and, more alarmingly, a communal turn with a few right wing outfits looking to fish in troubled waters. Viswa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal on Friday called for a bandh in Jagtial on Saturday to press for the reinstatement of the SI, who was suspended on Thursday after a video of his alleged fight with the Muslim women went viral.

Even as the rightwing organisations, eying a gold mine to communalise the issue, accused the BRS government in Telangana of making Anil Kumar a scapegoat as part of their Minority-appeasement agenda, the Sub-Inspector quickly distanced himself from the shutdown call and other agitational plans. On the other hand, Sandhya, the wife of the police officer expressed her anguish in a statement pleading for justice and claiming to be innocent in the whole episode.

Jagtial SI Anil Kumar landed himself in deep trouble after he was accused of manhandling the mother-daughter duo in an RTC bus in the town following what is claimed to be an altercation involving his wife Sandhya over the sharing of a seat on Wednesday. A video of the incident filmed by the Muslim women was subsequently circulated widely on social media platforms, prompting the senior police authorities of the district to place the SI under suspension pending an inquiry.

But in an unexpected development, the incident received a political and communal twist after Viswa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal on Friday gave a call for a town bandh in Jagtial. In a press release, VHP leaders sought to drag the BRS government into the controversy with a communal spin, attaching minority appeasement motives to it. In a heap of outlandish accusations, they questioned the state government as to how it could victimise the sub-inspector without any inquiry and wondered if this was being done to keep AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi in good humour. Demanding the immediate reinstatement of the suspended SI, they vowed to continue their struggle until justice was done to him.

Bandh call meant for the vested interest of a political party: Anil Kumar

In a rude shock to the plans of the ‘rightwingers’ to get some political mileage in the election year, Anil Kumar, the suspended SI, himself came out into the open to take the wheels off the agitation plans. Realising that the controversy centering around him is being used to score political brownie points and create communal tensions, he sought to diffuse the situation by distancing himself from the VHP’s bandh call.

In a veiled reference to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he clarified that he had nothing to do with the bandh call given by its affiliated groups and asserted that he would seek justice through all means as per law. Claiming that he was innocent, he exuded confidence that he would come out clean from it.

Reposing his complete faith in law, he appealed to the VHP leaders to not inconvenience the people of Jagtial by enforcing the bandh in town on Saturday. The police officer claimed that some vested elements had been deliberately sensationalising the incident in an attempt to create political mileage for their party. Stating that he did no wrong but was instead wronged in the incident, he expressed the hope that the authorities would conduct a detailed inquiry to do justice to him.

SI’s wife claims she was threatened, beaten

With the incident snowballing into a major issue, Sandhya, Anil Kumar’s wife and one of the women at the centre of the fight, came up with her version of the controversy. Seeking justice for her husband through his reinstatement, she claimed that they were the actual victims and that the mother-daughter duo played the victim card after threatening and beating her.

Narrating her side of the fight, she said that she sought to share the seat as she was unable to breastfeed her baby. “Despite the driver and others making similar requests, the two women refused to budge and instead issued unprovoked threats to me. They not only rained abuses at me but even assaulted me in the process. As the two women kept making calls to summon their people, I got really scared and started crying before frantically seeking my husband’s help.

“When my husband, on his arrival, was trying to find information from them, they started filming him on their smartphone. As my husband tried to stop the filming, the phone fell down. In the ensuing scuffle between me and one of the two women, my bangles were broken. It is an absolute lie to say that my husband was wearing shoes and that he kicked one of them. He came in plain clothes and wearing chappals,” Sandhya claimed.