PM Modi says Dadri killing 'sad', but that centre has no role to play

Attacks the opposition for trying to polarise the country, says BJP is against fake secularism

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has finally broken his silence on the Dadri murder, telling Bengali newspaper Anand Bazar Patrika that while incidents like Dadri and the cancellation of Pakistani ghazal singer Ghulam Ali's concert in Mumbai are 'sad', the Centre has no role to play. 

"The Dadri incident or opposition to Pakistani singer is undesirable and unfortunate. But what is the central government's relation with these incidents," he said.

The Prime Minister also took a swipe at the opposition and said that they are trying to polarise the nation by holding the BJP-led government responsibile but that the ruling party doesn’t support these kind of incidents. He also emphasised that the BJP is against such display of 'fake secularism'.

On his party's stand (on such incidents), Modi said, "BJP never supported such kind of incidents. The opposition is raising the bogey of communalism against BJP bringing those incidents, but are they themselves not doing politics of polarisation".

He said, "Such debate has taken place in the past. BJP always opposed pseudo-secularism. Now again this debate is taking place in the face of unfortunate social malaise".

"This debate can be resolved through dialogue and discussion," he said.

Modi claimed those parties were resorting to such propaganda which did not want the development of minorities and look at them as vote bank.

Modi has been under sustained attack from the oppositon parties, writers and civil society activists for his silence even days after the incidents took place. Last week, without naming the incidents, Modi had said at an election rally in Bihar that Hindus and Muslims should decide whether they want to fight poverty or each other.

Over 20 writers have returned the prestigious Sahitya Akademi awards in the past two  weeks, blaming both the Akademi and the government for not condemning a string of events including the recent killing of a man in Dadri over rumours of cow slaughter and the murder of author M M Kalburgi, allegedly for his rationalist views.