NAGPUR, India, 9 March 2008 — Adding fuel to the fire in Maharashtra, Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s firebrand leader and general secretary Praveen Togadia yesterday asked the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) to launch an agitation to flush out “half a million illegal Bangladeshi migrants” living in Mumbai and other parts of the state.
Addressing a press conference here, Togadia said the expulsion of “illegal Bangladeshi nationals” would bring twin benefits to the state: it would reduce the security threat to Mumbai and generate half a million job opportunities for ‘Indians’.
“Driving North Indians out of Mumbai, Pune, and Nashik is not a solution as the vacuum created by the exodus would easily be filled by another stream of illegal Bangladeshis,” the VHP leader said and added that the Sena and MNS should aggressively pursue the objective of flushing out Bangladeshi immigrants as soon as possible.
Asked if he would meet Sena chief Bal Thackeray or MNS President Raj Thackeray in this regard, Togadia said no.
He denounced the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance government in New Delhi for its “appeasement of Muslims” and making financial allocations on religious grounds.
Meanwhile, more cases of atrocities committed by MNS activists on North Indians have come to light. During last month’s attacks on migrants in Pune, MNS activists chopped off both hands of Shri Kishun Singh, a street vendor from Bihar. Singh is now being treated in a hospital in Siwan in western Bihar.
Unlike many other migrants, Singh failed to flee in time to save himself from the MNS thugs. “I was made a disabled for no crime. My only crime was that I was a poor hawker from Bihar and speak Hindi,” said Singh.
He comes from a village in Bihar’s Siwan district but used to sell bhujja — a mixture of gram rice and groundnut — on Pune’s streets. Singh told IANS on telephone from his hospital bed that he was attacked by a group of MNS activists while he was asleep on the pavement, his regular dwelling. He was brutally thrashed and became unconscious. When he came to the following day he found himself in a hospital with both hands amputated.
“I was told by doctors as well as some Bihari migrants who thronged the Pune hospital that both my hands were chopped off by the attackers,” Singh said.
Singh’s wife said her husband was the only bread-earner of the family.
— With input from agencies
