Headlines
Gadkari criticised for 'linking rape with religion'
Panaji, April 10
The Goa Congress has
criticised central minister Nitin Gadkari's controversial comment
wherein he raked up the religion of two Bangladeshis who were arrested
for raping a nun in West Bengal last month.
On Thursday, while
defending the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from
accusations of pandering to communalism made by the opposition,
including the Congress party, Gadkari cited the gangrape of a nun in
West Bengal last month, as an illustration to back his defence.
"Some
days ago, two youths were arrested for raping the nun in Kolkata turned
out to be Bangladeshi Muslims," said Minister of Road, Transport and
Highways Gadkari.
The comment has raised the hackles of Goa Congress.
"Rape
should not be linked to any religion. Rape is committed by a person
with a sick mind. We need to punish the rapist and not bring religion
into this kind of crime," Congress secretary Durgadas Kamat told IANS.
The gangrape of a septuagenarian Catholic nun in West Bengal's Nadia district had caused national uproar last month.
Two Bangladeshi nationals were arrested in connection with crime from Mumbai and North 24 Parganas district from West Bengal.
The
central minister also said that the investigating agencies, probing the
attacks on churches in Delhi, had said, that the crimes were not
communal in nature and some, he said, involved drunken miscreants going
berserk.
"All these incidents are unfortunate and they have no
link direct or indirect with the BJP, organisations which share our
ideology or the government of India. Narendra Modi and the BJP are being
time and again attacked repeatedly in newer ways to confuse people, by
saying that attacks on minorities have increased and that this
government is against minorities," Gadkari said.
Gadkari also
made an impassioned defence of his government, claiming that the
Opposition was raising the communal bogie without reason only to instill
a fear and insecurity in the minority community.
"The Opposition
has been trying to target the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi by
creating a fear about the party and the governm