Union Minister Jayant Sinha’s act of garlanding the convicted in the 2017 Alimuddin Ansari lynching case made headlines and sparked national outrage in July 2018. It's been revealed now that Sinha and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) also provided the convicts financial and legal assistance.
In an interview with BBC Hindi, Sinha spoke about felicitating the eight convicts in the case and how his party helped them get bail. Sinha is the BJP MP from Hazaribagh, the district in which the incident took place.
In June 2017, a mob lynched Alimuddin Ansari on the suspicion that he was carrying beef. In videos that circulated of the assault, the assailants were seen beating Ansari while his car was on fire in the background.
In a first, the Jharkhand fast track court had convicted 11 out of 12 people under IPC Section 302 (murder) and Section 120B (conspiracy). The Jharkhand High Court, on 30 June 2018, suspended the life sentences that were granted to eight out of the eleven accused, including local BJP leader Nityanand Mahato and granted the rest of them bail.
Soon after their release, the eight convicts were seen at Sinha’s residence, where he garlanded them and posed for a photograph. It's this photograph which became the subject of a national debate for days ahead.
‘Helped The Accused Financially’
On being asked how he helped the convicts secure bail, Sinha said:
“The families of the accused asked me to get them a good lawyer, and asked for me to pay as well. Since so many people from my party had supported them financially, I also did the same. Many of the convicts were from extremely poor financial backgrounds and they needed that monetary support, which went as the fee for the defence lawyer Mr Tripathy.”Union Home Minister Jayant Sinha.
Sinha also said that in the future he will not garland anyone as people misuse such gestures for propagating their own ideology.
After he had quoted Martin Luther King Jr saying, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he was questioned if he had provided any similar support to Mariam Khatoon, Ansari's wife. The minister replied saying that he had discussed with the administration on how she can get the compensation she deserves from the government. He also added that all assistance would have been provided to the family had they approached him.
However, when the BBC approached Mariam for her reaction on Sinha’s comment, she denied getting any help from the administration.
“Only when Jayant Sinha gets my son a job within a month, will I feel that he has helped me and my family in any way.”Mariam Khatoon, wife of deceased Alimuddin Ansari.
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