Police officer's lynching 'unholy' act in holy Ramzan: MoS PMO Jitendra Singh

Jitendra Singh, blamed the previous Congress governments for the situation in Kashmir.

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New Delhi: The lynching of a police officer in Jammu and Kashmir is an "unholy" act in the pious month of Ramzan, Union minister Jitendra Singh said today.

He said the tragic death of the officer was yet another eye-opener for the innocent masses of Kashmir who had been held to ransom for decades together by self-styled protagonist who claimed to have waged a war in the name of religion, jihad or Islam.

"If this is a war in the name of religion can there be more irreligious act like this? And if this is the war in the holy name of Islam, can there be a more unholy and un-Islamic act than this in the holy month of Ramzan?" Singh told PTI.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohammad Ayub Pandit was stripped naked and stoned to death by an irate mob after he allegedly opened fire at a group of people, who caught him clicking pictures near the historic Jamia Masjid in Srinagar in the early hours today.

Singh, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), has said militants are under tremendous pressure and in desperation they are resorting to cowardice act like this which is actually creating public opinion against them.
He demanded strict action against those involved in the lynching.

Singh, who is also the Lok Sabha member from the state's Udhampur constituency, blamed the previous Congress governments for the situation in Kashmir.

"What is being witnessed in Kashmir today is cumulative consequential series of pitfalls, blunders and experiments done by the Congress governments when it was at the helm both at the Centre and in Jammu and Kashmir, either lone or in coalition, for nearly half-the-century," the minister said.

In the last two years, some of the decisive steps taken by the Modi government both in combating militancy as well as bringing to book the separatists and the promoters of terrorism were not seen in the earlier years of the previous Congress governments, he said.