In what comes across as a repeated case of hooliganism, Swami Agnivesh was manhandled yet again near the BJP office in Delhi, where he had gone to pay his last respects to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The 79-year-old social activist was attacked for the second time in a month. He was beaten in Jharkhand by a mob that allegedly included BJP workers.
An NDTV report quoted Agnivesh as saying, “I had gone to pay my respects to Vajpayee ji. Because of the police pickets, I had to walk down the last stretch… suddenly a group of people came and attacked us. There were two-three of us and they were quite a few. They beat us badly, pushed us around, abused us and knocked off my turban. They kept shouting ‘he’s a traitor, he’s a traitor, beat him’,” he added.
Through several videos that surfaced online it was clear that the saffron-robed Swami Agnivesh was chased, heckled and pushed around by a group as he attempted to shield himself in vain. His turban was yanked by an unidentified man while a woman, indicative of raising her slipper in the air, attempted to flung it at him.
Previously on July 17, Swami Agnivesh was thrashed, punched and kicked by a mob that allegedly consisted of BJP workers or BJP Yuva Morcha in Jharkhand’s Pakur. The activist was beaten and pinned to the ground with his arms raised in a defensive stance against the crowd, his clothes were ripped too.
“It was a lynch mob. A mob of 100-150 people attacked me. I was pushed and I fell. I was on the ground, my clothes torn… they accused me of supporting gau maas (beef). They raised slogans of Jai Sri Ram. Abused me,” Swami Agnivesh.
“With folded hands I kept saying — what’s the problem, what is my mistake, why are you angry? Nobody listened to me.”
BJP-ruled Jharkhand sought to deny any links to the attackers but one of its leaders appeared to justify the attack saying that “Swami Agnivesh’s ‘track record’ is such that the reaction doesn’t come as a surprise”.
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