Prime Minister Narendra Modi had last week said during a poll rally in Jharkhand that miscreants damaging public property while protesting the CAA could be "indentified by the clothes they are wearing".
But have party members taken that a tad bit literally? According to a report by The Telegraph, a West Bengal youth known locally as a BJP worker, along with five associates donned lungis and skull caps before proceeding to throw stones at a train engine on Wednesday.
The incident took place in the Murshidabad District of West Bengal.
The six were allegedly caught throwing stones at a Sealdah-bound trial engine by locals and then detained by Murshidabad police. According to the locals, the group changed clothes near the railway line first.
Reportedly, 21-year-old Abhishek Sarkar, one of the accused, is a local BJP worker who many have seen at the forefront of local rallies organised by the party. However BJP district president Gouri Sankar Ghosh denies that he is a party member.
“The youths claimed they had worn lungis and skull caps for the sake of a video they were shooting for their YouTube channel. But they could not prove the existence of any such channel,” The Telegraph quoted the district police chief as saying.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also alluded to the incident in an indirect manner during a Kolkata rally on Thursday, reports PTI.
"We have specific inputs that the BJP is buying skull caps for its cadres, who are wearing them while vandalising properties to malign a particular community," she alleged.
"Don't fall into BJP's trap. They want to make it a fight between Hindus and Muslims," she had warned.
On Thursday, Banerjee had demanded that an "impartial organisation" like the United Nations should form a committee to see how many people were in favour of the Citizenship Amendment Act.
"Let there be an impartial organisation like United Nations or Human Rights Commission ...form a committee to see how many people are in favour or against the Citizenship Amendment Act," she said while addressing the Kolkata rally.
She had also accused the BJP of acting like a "washing machine" which cleans the corrupt and the criminals and turns them into sages. She'd said that despite imposing prohibitory orders in various parts of the country, the saffron party will not succeed in curbing protests.
Banerjee, who has been at the forefront of protests against the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the new citizenship law, has led three marches crisscrossing the city since Monday. The Chief Minister is scheduled to address another rally in the minority-dominated Park Circus area on Friday.
(With inputs from agencies)
