After Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Manmohan Singh took a jibe at the saffron fringe for killing people in the name of cow protection.

The former prime minister said law and the Constitution do not encourage hate crimes.
Singh, speaking at a function to celebrate Eid, advocated that people of "Hindustan" should come together to guard the nation.

"We should create an ambience which concurs with lessons we have got from our law and Constitution... so that we can hug each other with a sense of brotherhood," the veteran Congress leader stated. His comments came at a time when reports highlighted that cow vigilantism has claimed 23 lives since 2014 -- the year the NDA government was installed at the Centre.

Manmohan Singh said the bad influence being peddled in the name of religion reminded him of a couplet of renowned Urdu poet Allama Iqbal, whose original name was Muhammad Iqbal. “Mazhab nahi sikhata aapas me bair rakhna,” Singh quoted Iqbal.

Modi, too, had condemned mob lynching under the garb of cow protection” and lamented that even Mahatma Gandhi would not have liked what was happening.
“It has been condemned by one and all. The prime minister also, for the second time, spoke about it. It is happening in different parts of the country and it is barbaric and atrocious. No religious angle is linked to it,” said Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu.