In Delhi, BJP is playing a very dangerous game

Union home minister Amit Shah has reportedly asked the Delhi police to take the “strictest” action against the young man who opened fire with a pistol at anti-CAA protesters at Jamia when they were setting out for Rajghat on the day of Mahatma Gandhi’s martyrdom on Thursday, and injured a student. It is unlikely Mr Shah will be taken at face value.

The shooter’s Facebook activity suggests he has long been linked to the RSS and its affiliates. After discharging a bullet from his gun, he appeared only a few yards away from the massed police force and seemed confident he will come to no harm. When a policeman at last apprehended him, the widely beamed videos showed the shooter raised a slogan in favour of the Delhi police.

A widely shared view is that the gunman was planted by Hindutva forces to do something sensational just days before the Delhi Assembly polls on February 8 to consolidate communal polarisation. A somewhat different but not wholly dissimilar view is that he, a self-confessed Hindutva nationalist who was psyched up by propagandist videos (like many young Muslims drawn to the current concept of jihad), fell an easy prey to Anurag Thakur’s outrageous provocation at a public meeting two days earlier when he instigated a Delhi election rally to chant “shoot the traitors”, with those of a particular faith being all but identified as such by a long list of BJP top leaders.

Any propaganda-crazed Hindutva-oriented youth is likely to be dead certain he will come to no harm these days. Last month, one of the JNU attackers, a young woman who was identified though she too had her face covered, as an activist of the ABVP, the RSS' student body, is still roaming free. Other attackers were found to be linked to the same group. But the only FIR filed by the police was against Aishe Ghosh, leader of the students’ union who was attacked with a rod and had serious injuries to her head. Such a police force is expected to be indulgent with criminals of the Hindutva variety.

All this is very well, but what of Mr Thakur? Is it enough that he was asked by the Election Commission to sit out the campaign for a few days, now that his vulgar exhortation has led to a shooting? Should criminal law not catch up with him for being an accessory to an attempted murder? Probably none of this will happen. After all, just after saying strict action will be taken against the shooter, the Union home minister on Thursday said the Delhi election was a battle between Shaheen Bagh and those who taught Pakistan a lesson through a “surgical strike”. The dumbest mind can't fail to see that anti-CAA protesters are being singled out as being of one faith, though this is a false pitch. The BJP has prepared a communal wicket and is playing every stroke in the book on it, not bothering with any other issue. This is a dangerous poll campaign.