New Delhi: In a planned attack, a mob led by the extremist Hindutva group Karni Sena vandalised the residence of Samajwadi Party MP Ramji Lal Suman in Agra on Wednesday (March 26) days after the senior Dalit leader, while speaking in parliament, apparently offended them after he referred to 16th-century Rajput ruler Rana Sanga’s invitation to Babur to India to fight against Lodhi ruler Ibrahim Lodi.
Several cars outside Suman’s house were damaged and chairs broken as the mob vandalised the property and shattered the glass of his home by pelting stones and bricks at it.
Several police personnel, including an inspector and a sub-inspector, and others in the property were injured in the attack by the extremist group, although the exact number of injured persons as well as vehicles and other household items damaged are not known.
Before descending upon his residence – in cars and on bikes and bulldozers – members of the Karni Sena, an extremist Kshatriya group known for violence, issued several warnings on social media to Suman that they would land up outside his house on Wednesday.
Through Facebook, Karni Sena leader Okendra Singh Rana appealed to his supporters to reach Agra in large numbers and even shared the exact location and time on social media.
Agra police said they tried to intercept the Karni Sena’s members and even set up barricades at several checkpoints in the city, but that the hooligans took alternate routes, entered the campus by concealing their identity and evaded the checkpoints.
Police said they have arrested some rioters but did not issue an exact number or details.
Two criminal cases have been lodged against the rioters, but only one person has been named: Okendra Singh Rana.
After Suman calls Rana Sanga a traitor, Okendra Rana issues violent threats to MP
The controversy broke out when Suman, a Rajya Sabha MP, on March 21 tried to counter the BJP’s communal propaganda that Indian Muslims consider the 16th century Mughal emperor Babur as their idol by referring to Rana Sanga.
Suman said that Muslims in India follow Prophet Muhammad and the Sufi tradition.
“But I want to ask, who brought Babur here? It was Rana Sanga who invited Babur to defeat Ibrahim Lodi. So, if Muslims are called the descendants of Babur, then Hindus must be the descendants of traitor Rana Sanga. We criticise Babur, but why don’t we criticise Rana Sanga?” Suman said.
Two days before the attack on his house, Karni Sena members went on social media to mobilise support and issued open threats to the MP.
They used abusive, derogatory, casteist and sexist language while issuing violent threats to him.
Okendra Singh Rana, in a Facebook video a day before the attack, asked Kshatriya community members to reach Suman’s residence in Agra in large numbers on tractors and bring with them a saffron flag and a strong lathi.
Rana denigrated Suman, a multiple-time MP, by using the highly derogative casteist slur “mlechha” for him. He also referred to Suman as a “dog”, “Babur ka vansaj” and “Halala ki aulad”.
Rana said that the only way the Rajput community would forgive Suman was if he rubbed his nose at the memorial dedicated to Rana Sanga in Rupbas, Rajasthan.
“I will inflict such wounds on you that you will never be able to forget me all your life,” Rana said. He asked his followers to be prepared for an “aar paar ki ladai” or a fight to the finish.
Rioters reportedly used around 100 cars, bikes to reach Agra
On the early afternoon of Wednesday, as promised, Karni Sena members marched towards Suman’s house. He was not in Agra that day, but his son Ranjeet Suman, a former MLA, and his supporters were.
The rioters broke police barricades and tried to break the gate of Suman’s house. They broke the window of at least six cars, pelted stones and bricks at the house and those who tried to stop them.
Hindi newspaper Amar Ujala reported that the rioters used around 100 cars and bikes to reach Agra.
The vandalism and stone pelting lasted 20 minutes, the newspaper said.
Two FIRs were lodged in the case. One of them was registered against Okendra Rana and other unidentified persons on the complaint of a police officer, while the second FIR booked “an uncontrolled mob of hundreds” on the complaint of Ranjeet Suman.
Ranjeet Suman said that around 2 pm, hundreds of people, hurling casteist abuses and threats to kill, turned up at the gate.
They launched a “life-threatening attack on me and my supporters,” said Ranjeet in his complaint, a copy of which is with The Wire. He said that had his supporters not escorted him to safety in time, “they would have murdered me.”
He said that the rioters broke the windshield of his SUV and even stole cash and other items from the car. They also entered the flat and took away both household and expensive items, he alleged.
The attack was “well-planned,” he said. “What’s unfortunate is that for many days, they had been announcing threats to kill [his father] on various platforms of social media,” said Ranjeet. Speaking to a news agency, he stressed that the police and the administration were aware of these threats but the attack took place anyway.
The FIR invoked charges of attempt to murder, rioting, criminal intimidation threatening to cause death, mischief, robbery and house trespass with intent to cause harm or assault.
Condemning the attack, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav said Suman was attacked due to his Dalit identity.
Karni Sena members reached MP’s home by concealing identity, evading barricades: police
Suman later clarified that his remarks were not meant to target any cultural icon, caste or religion. “Babur came to India on the invitation of Rana Sanga. This is a historical fact. I did not intend to hurt anyone’s feelings,” he said.
Sanjeev Tyagi, additional commissioner of police for Agra, said that a mob under the leadership of the Karni Sena, angered by Suman’s comments, had arrived at the seat to create a ruckus. Police had set up barricades at various spots to stop them and they were stopped at some checkpoints, said the officer.
Tyagi said that some Karni Sena members had been detained but that others managed to reach the MP’s house either by concealing their identity, evading police barricades or taking alternate routes. The police used force to stop them and pushed them back, said Tyagi.
When journalists asked the officer how the rioters managed to cover a distance of 15 kilometres to Suman’s house by road after issuing open threats on social media, he said that some of them had managed to evade checkpoints or used other means to reach the residence.
“We prevented a big incident from taking place,” said Tyagi.
Sub-inspector Dinesh Kumar, who was posted for security duty at the main gate of the MP’s residence, said that around 1:20 pm, a mob led by Okendra Singh Rana arrived at the gate, protesting, and tried to enter the house.
Kumar said the police stationed there used force to control the crowd but that Rana and others started pelting stones and bricks at the house.
Inspector Alok Singh’s hand was injured while Kumar’s head started bleeding.
Others at the site who tried to stop the mob, including police personnel and officers, were also injured due to the “upadrav” (violence), said Kumar.
He noted that the rioters damaged the vehicles parked near the house, shattering windows of the house as well as of the cars. All this was captured on video as well as by the cameras planted locally, he said.
The case was lodged under charges of mischief, voluntarily causing hurt and disobedience to orders duly promulgated by a public servant. All these are punishable by two years or less in jail.
Opposition ‘steeped in Mughal thinking’, hurt ‘identity of the nation’: Keshav Maurya
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath was in Agra, attending an official function, on the day Suman’s house was attacked. Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav took note of this in a post on X.
“Is the chief minister’s sphere of influence decreasing day by day or is no one listening to the ‘outgoing CM’ now? If he is still the chief minister, then take immediate action and identify the culprits with the help of AI and punish them, otherwise it will be assumed that all this against the PDA (pichhda, Dalit, alpsankhyak) MP has happened with his permission,” said Yadav.
He also clarified that his party did not aim to insult any historical figure.
“The Samajwadi Party is not questioning the valour and patriotism of Mewar’s king Rana Sanga. The BJP has always used some topics of history to gain political advantage and to divide the country on religious-caste basis. Our MP has only tried to give an example of one-sided history and one-sided interpretation. None of our efforts are to insult Rajput society or any other society,” he said.
BJP leaders, on the other hand, accused the Samajwadi Party of triggering caste enmity and insulting Hindu rulers of the past.
“The opposition, steeped in appeasement and Mughal thinking, is hurting not only history but also the identity of the nation by insulting the ancestors of ‘national pride’ Maharana Pratap, especially ‘Rana Sanga’, a worshipper of Ekling Mahadev,” Keshav Prasad Maurya, Uttar Pradesh’s deputy chief minister, said a day after Suman’s house was attacked.
Maurya, however, did not say anything about the vandalism.
