Pawan Khera plays down the communal angle in the murder of a Hindu man in Uttam Nagar, Delhi. Photo: X.
Senior Congress leader Pawan Khera on Tuesday accused the BJP and the RSS of using the death of a Hindu man in Delhi’s Uttam Nagar to inflame communal tensions ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr, while alleging that provocative rhetoric around festivals had become normalised over the past decade.
In a video message, Khera referred to the death of 26-year-old Karan during clashes in Uttam Nagar around Holi and said the incident had subsequently been turned into a communal flashpoint.
“A few days ago, there was Holi. There was a fight between two people in Delhi’s Uttam Nagar. A person named Tarun was killed. He died. After that, the RSS and BJP made this entire incident so prominent, so communal, that today people are marching on the streets of Delhi saying that there will be a ‘murderous Eid’. That Muslims will be wiped out. And the Delhi Police is sitting silently as a spectator,” Khera said.
Uttam Nagar in Delhi has remained tense ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr, days after the death of the 26-year-old man in clashes between members of two communities.
Khera said festivals were meant to bring people together, but claimed that in the last 10 to 12 years, an atmosphere had been created in which religious occasions were increasingly being used to provoke and intimidate minorities.
“Friends, whenever there is a festival, whether it is Holi, Eid, Christmas, Hanuman Jayanti, or Ram Navami, we all want to celebrate it with joy, with friends, with family, and within society as well. That was the purpose of festivals,” he said.
“But in the last 10–12 years, such an atmosphere has been created in which, if it is Hanuman Jayanti, everyone has to dance outside the mosque, DJs have to be played, and people have to be harassed.”
He went on to allege that even Christmas celebrations were being disrupted.
“If it is Christmas, people have to go to the church and create a disturbance. It feels as if an entrance test is going on for the BJP. Whoever uses hate speech, harasses people with caps and beards, lynches them, uses vulgar slogans, and speaks in hateful language—that person will move ahead in the BJP,” Khera said.
The Congress leader also targeted the Delhi Police, accusing it of failing to act despite open threats and rising communal hostility in the capital.
“What are you waiting for? Do you want an atmosphere like 2020? Do you want riots again? What do you want? Why do you not stop them? Why are you allowing such an atmosphere to grow?” he asked.
He appealed directly to the police and authorities to intervene before the situation worsened.
“But we request the Delhi Police and the authorities not to let these walls of hatred grow so much that our real identity—the identity of this country, the identity of this civilization—gets buried under them,” Khera said.
Zubair Amin is a Senior Journalist at NewsX with over seven years of experience in reporting and editorial work. He has written for leading national and international publications, including Foreign Policy Magazine, Al Jazeera, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Wire, Article 14, Mongabay, News9, among others. His primary focus is on international affairs, with a strong interest in US politics and policy. He also writes on West Asia, Indian polity, and constitutional issues. Zubair tweets at zubaiyr.amin
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