Attacking the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the alleged gang-rape of a 19-year-old girl in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar said on Monday that the Sangh and its political arm saw women only as “commodities.”
Mr. Ambedkar, grandson of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “conspicuous silence.”
“The heinous Hathras incident has been protested at all levels of society… The younger generation is now looking at the oppression of women from a different perspective. In this changing scenario, it is worth noting that the mentality of the RSS-BJP throughout has been to propagate this notion of women as objects of consumption,” the VBA leader said after a protest in Pune.
He said it was heartening to see youth coming out in large numbers to protest crimes against women.
A noted lawyer himself, the VBA chief said that the U.P. police and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) had no right to ‘threaten’ the kin of the victim.
“Who is giving the officials these instructions to intimidate the victim’s family? It can only be the political leadership of Uttar Pradesh. That is why the victim’s family has demanded that the supreme court appoint a judge to inquire into the matter, and monitor the probe. We fully support this demand,” he said.
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