No pause in lynchings since 2014, says Owaisi on Aligarh mob killing Muslim man

Hyderabad: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Wednesday alleged that there has been no pause in incidents of lynching since 2014 when the BJP-led NDA government assumed office at the Centre.

He was responding to reports of the alleged lynching of a man in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh by a mob that accused him of theft.

"There has been no pause in lynchings since 2014. Mobs are emboldened now because they know that they will get away. If a mob had the strength to kill someone on a 'suspicion', it could have easily held Aurangzeb (the victim) till the police reached," Owaisi said in a post on social media platform X.

The man was allegedly lynched in Aligarh on Tuesday night by a mob that accused him of theft, triggering communal tensions.

Six people were arrested after the mob attack on the man in Mamu Bhanja locality in Aligarh, police said.

In a separate post on X, the AIMIM president, referring to another incident of ransacking of a Muslim trader's shop at Nahan in Congress-ruled Himachal Pradesh, alleged that party leader Rahul Gandhi's slogan of 'Mohabbat ki Dukaan' seems to be an empty promise just like the BJP's catch phrase of 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas'.

"If the looters were Muslim and the shopkeeper was a Hindu, the police would not be mute spectators. But I guess 'Mohabbat ki Dukaan' is a jumla just like 'Sabka Saath'," he said in the X post.

Shopkeepers at Nahan in Himachal Pradesh downed shutters and a mob ransacked the shop of a Muslim trader from Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur on Wednesday, accusing the man of posting a video of cow slaughter during Eid-ul-Zuha (Bakrid).

An X user on Wednesday posted a video showing several people ransacking a shop in Nahan, throwing stuff out, mostly books and clothes, while police tried to stop them.

Police said they collected the thrown out articles in bags and put them back inside the shop.