Gujarat has ‘hate and kill’ model : Mahua Moitra on BJP’s poll ticket to Godhra MLA

West Bengal MP Mahua Moitra on Saturday (November 12) said the BJP’s much-touted “Gujarat model” was that of “hate and kill, then fete and reward” while tearing into the saffron party for giving a ticket for the Gujarat Assembly polls to the Godhra MLA who had called the convicted men in the rape of Bilkis Banu and the murder of her family members as “Sanskari Brahmins.”

“Godhra MLA who called Bilkis case rapists & killers ‘Sanskari Brahmins’ is re-nominated by BJP. This is the Gujarat Model. Hate & Kill. Then Fete & Reward,” Moitra tweeted.

The 11 convicts, sentenced to life imprisonment in the Godhra case, were released on August 15 after the Gujarat government set them free under its remission policy.

Days after their release, BJP MLA Chandrasinh Raulji during an interview with a news portal had said that the 11 convicts were Brahmins and therefore good people.

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“And Brahmins are known to have good ‘sanskar’. It might have been someone’s ill intention to corner and punish them,” he said.

The comment had elicited widespread outrage from the Opposition.

The BJP government in Bihar had defended the decision to free the 11 rapists by stating that all of them had completed 14 years in incarceration and on grounds of good behaviour.

Moitra is one of the petitioners who have challenged the government’s decision to release the 11 rapists, in the Supreme Court, seeking a remission of the order.

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The Supreme Court is slated to hear the matter on November 29.

A five-month pregnant Bilkis Bano was gang-raped and seven of her family members including her three-year-old daughter were killed during the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002.