Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) has condemned the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in Uttar Pradesh that claimed the lives of eight people including four farmers and injured several others. Expressing grief over the incident, the JIH has offered its condolences to the bereaved.
At least 8 people including farmers and a journalist were killed during a farmers’ protest on Sunday in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri.
In a media statement today, JIH Vice President Prof. Salim Engineer said: “It is being said that the violence was not an accident but a deliberate conspiracy. Using this incident as a pretext, the farmers’ agitation is being labelled as illegal and put down using force. The incident has made it plain for the people of Uttar Pradesh and the whole country that their fundamental rights are being crushed using different methods and ploys. We demand a high-level inquiry into the entire episode”.
The JIH Vice President pointed out, “the farmers who are agitating peacefully are being oppressed by elements that are aligned with the government. The people of India are observing these developments closely. Such incidents stand condemned in any functioning democracy. We demand that the UP government must allow the law to take its course against all those involved in the killing of the farmers, no matter how well they might be politically connected.”
Prof. Salim Engineer has demanded the government to give a compensation of Rs. one crore each to the families of the deceased. “The government must refrain from deploying illegitimate means for stopping the farmers to exercise their democratic right to protest. Such authoritarian behaviour sullies the image of the country and our dream to be an ideal functioning democracy is not realized,” he added.
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Ghazala Ahmad is the Delhi Correspondent for The Cognate.
