It has been confirmed by now that the BJP leaders at fairly top level had played mischief to play communal card by creating fake narrative using Kairana. The alleged culprit and the BJP MP, Hukum Singh, later confessed that giving it a communal colour was a mistake.
The BJP leaders had extensively used the viral photos of ‘yeh makaan bikau hai (This house is for sale)’ to support their argument that Hindus were forced to sell their homes to leave the village.
But, it has emerged that just as the communal narrative on Kairana, the photos of ‘on sale’ houses were also fake.
A Ghaziabad-based businessman has filed a police complaint, alleging that his family had been dragged into the Shamli “exodus” controversy by unidentified people who put up his house “on sale.”
Gaurav Jain, according to Indian Express, in his complaint, told the police that some unidentified people wrote on the wall of his house, located in Shamli’s Kandhla town, that it was “up for sale” and have since been circulating photographs in the media to present it as an example of Hindus leaving town.
Hukum Singh’s second list had 63 names and Gaurav Jain’s father, Paras Chand, too was included in the list of those having allegedly migrated from two Shamli towns, Kairana and Kandhla.
The 36-year-old businessman denied that the threat was a reason for his family to move out of his village.
He said, “I moved out in 2010 for the growth of my career. Later, my family — parents, wife and children — also shifted to Ghaziabad. (But) in the list, my father’s name too has figured.
“I was surprised to see in the media a photo of my house with a message written on the wall that it is up for sale. The house is located at Saravgyan mohalla in Kandhla. The media is showing my house in the context of the exodus. I immediately complained about it to the district magistrate and requested for an inquiry.”
Shamli District Magistrate Sujeet Kumar confirmed receiving the complaint.
The Kairana issue had assumed a big national controversy with a section of media joining the chorus by providing credence to Singh’s original statement.
The issue also dominated the two-day national executive meet of the BJP in Allahabad, where the president of the saffron party, Amit Shah, made desperate attempts to extract political mileage ahead of next year’s crucial assembly polls.
Singh’s first list had 346 people who he claimed have fled their homes in Kairana, a Muslim-majority town in western Uttar Pradesh, because of “threats and extortion by criminal elements belonging to a particular community”.
Later at a news conference, he said, “I have asked my workers to re-verify, few names may be off the mark, but largely it’s the same. It’s not a communal issue, but a law and order problem.”
As it emerges, it’s not even law and order problem. A fake story may have been created by a desperate party to win Uttar Pradesh next year.