– Mohammed Atherulla Shariff
Dec. 17: Rescue of the trapped tunnel workers in Uttarkashi last month and the security failure that occurred in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday are two prisms which categorically show people in two different camps in India. Admiration and condemnation are now decided on the basis of the community of the doers.
Since most of the rat-hole miners who rescued the 41 tunnel workers were Muslims, though the technology-loaded mighty machines failed after 17 days struggle, they did not get the appreciation and reward they deserved. Had they been other than Muslims, it is left to anybody’s visualization of the heroic treatment they would have received.
Also, imagine what would have been the response of the ruling BJP and other saffron brigades if the passes had been handed over by a Muslim MP. Alternatively, what if the passes were issued by a non-BJP, especially a Congress MP and the intruders had been Muslims?
Surely, a salivating saffron party would have called it a well-coordinated conspiracy and a terrorist attack. Mainstream media and social media would have peeped into the family trees of the attackers and brought some link with terrorists. Their family members back home would have faced the media trial and several OBC vans of media channels would have stationed before their houses and minute-to-minute developments would have been broadcast.
Not only the culprits but the entire Muslim community would have been put to media trial and image tarnishing.
The two men, Sagar and Manoranjan D, who jumped down from the gallery and got into the Lower House, had obtained entry passes from BJP MP from Mysuru-Kodagu Pratap Simha.
The men appear to be part of a six-member group that wanted to protest against issues such as unemployment and the ruling party’s ‘authoritarianism’. Sagar and Manoranjan shouted slogans and set off smoke canisters before being apprehended.
Three more of them have been nabbed. Meanwhile, Simha has tried to downplay his role in the breach, telling Speaker Om Birla that he didn’t personally know the intruders, adding that the father of one of them was from his constituency.
While handing out the passes, the MP gives an undertaking that he knows the visitors, which is inconsistent with Simha’s excuse. Congress, on the other hand, wants the erring MP arrested.
Just recall the date of the breach (December 13) coincided with the attack on the old Parliament complex in 2001, in which five assailants killed nine persons before being neutralised.
