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Journalism of Courage
GANDHINAGAR, DEC 24: While Opposition parties have condemned the recent roughing-up of the Ahmedabad municipal commissioner and the mayor by VHP-Bajrang Dal activists, the BJP appears to be downplaying the episode.
The State is yet to react to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation incident — it did not figure at the informal Cabinet meeting here today either.
However, a senior ministerial colleague of CM Keshubhai Patel, subsequent to the meeting, expressed concern over the incident.
“If a bureaucrat like civic chief B K Sinha is not protected from lumpen elements, the bureaucracy will be demoralised,” he said. It was surprising, he said, that one of his colleagues, at the Cabinet meeting, sought to get Sinha transferred instead of condemning the incident.
“The miscreants involved in the ugly episode must be brought to book to instil a feeling of security among bureaucrats and other government functionaries”, he asserted.State Home Minister Haren Pandya had said yesterday security arrangementshad been made near Sinha’s office as well as in the municipal premises to prevent such incidents. But he refused to comment on whether VHP-BD activists were involved.
On recent attacks on minorities in Gujarat, he said the VHP-BD had been found involved in three of the 39 incidents, and action taken against them. “Some mischievous elements attached to mysterious organisations like the Hindu Shiv Sena appear to have been involved in some of the recent violent incidents, and it will be wrong to pin responsibility on the VHP-BD combine for this,” he said.
