Udaipur tailor murder: Congress alleges BJP links to killers citing pics, saffron party refutes 'fake news'

The BJP on Saturday vehemently denied the Congress’ charge of the saffron party’s links to one of the perpetrators in the murder of a tailor in Rajasthan’s Udaipur.

Denying any links to the either of the two accused as alleged by the Congress which cited media reports and social media posts, the BJP reiterated that the brutal killing was a failure of the Congress government in Rajasthan. 

The Congress charged that one of the killers was a “BJP member” and asked whether the Centre had transferred the probe to the NIA to sweep it under the carpet. 

Congress leader Pawan Khera posted a series of tweets, including several media reports, along with pictures of Riaz Akhtari with local BJP workers, pointing to his links with the party. 

“The killer of Kanhaiya Lal, Riyaz Attari is a member of the BJP,” Khera said in tweet, prompting other Congress leaders who made similar claims on Twitter.

The claims drew consternation from the BJP's IT cell chief Amit Malviya who dismissed them as "fake news”.

"I am not surprised that you are peddling #FakeNews. The Udaipur murderers WERN'T members of the BJP. Their attempt to infiltrate was like the LTTE assassin's attempt to enter the Congress to kill Rajiv Gandhi," he tweeted.  

I am not surprised that you are peddling #FakeNews.
The Udaipur murderers WERN’T members of the BJP. Their attempt to infiltrate was like the LTTE assassin’s attempt to enter the Congress to kill Rajiv Gandhi.
Congress should stop fooling around with terror and national security. https://t.co/Nn5FKzxiwS

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) July 2, 2022

At the news briefing, Mr Khera cited pictures and posts linking Attari with BJP leaders -- Irshad Chainwala and Mohammad Tahir.

"It has also come to the fore in the same disclosure that the main accused Riyaz Attari often participated in the programmes of Rajasthan BJP leader and former minister Gulabchand Kataria," he alleged.

"Not only this, but pictures of the main accused Riyaz Attari attending the meetings of the BJP's Rajasthan minority unit are also in front of the world," Mr Khera claimed.

Reports suggest that Riaz Akhtari and Ghouse Mohammad — the two men accused of beheading tailor Kanhaiya Lal in broad daylight in Udaipur for allegedly supporting BJP’s Nupur Sharma on social media — had been trying to join BJP’s minority cell in Rajasthan for years. 

Attari had been navigating himself through the party with the help of BJP followers, said a report by India Today. After his return from pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in 2019, he had been welcomed by Irshad Chainwala, a decade old member of the BJP Minorty Morcha.

Riaz and Ghouse had allegedly hacked Kanhaiya Lal to death at his shop in Dhan Mandi area on June 28 and posted videos online saying they were avenging an insult to Islam. Not only had they recorded the act on camera, but also boasted about the killing and even went on to threaten Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

The duo was arrested by Rajasthan Police within four hours of the incident while the case was transferred to the NIA. The investigation so far has revealed Riaz’s links with Pakistan-based Dawat-e-Islami and that he had visited Karachi in 2014.