The former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh criticized the current PM long silent approach towards the Kathua and Unnao rape cases. The allegations in both the cases were pointed out at BJP. Manmohan Singh said “should follow his advice to me” and “speak more often”.

During an exclusive interview, Singh said that he was very glad that Modi finally broke his silence last Friday at an event in Delhi commemorating the birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar when he said that the “daughters of India” will get justice and the guilty won’t be spared.

When questioned over the manner in which the BJP would taunt him, calling him ‘Maun-Mohan Singh’ when he chose silence over speech on several matters during the last months of his government, the former PM said he “had lived with comments like these his whole life”.

Former PM Manmohan Singh, Modi, Kathua, Unnao, Rape Cases, B R Ambedkar birth anniversary, Mehbooba Mufti, rape crime, modi silence, religion difference, communalism

 “But I think the Prime Minister should follow his advice to me, and he should speak more often. Through press (reports) I know that he used to criticize me for not speaking up. I feel that the advice that he used to give me, he should follow it himself,” he said.

Singh said that Modi’s failure to speak up soon after the incidents had allowed people to think that they could get away without stern action being taken against them. “I do feel that those in authority must speak up in time (so as) to give a lead to their followers,” he said.

In the wake of the Delhi gangrape in 2012, for example, the Congress party and his government had taken all necessary action by amending the laws around rape, said Singh.

When questioned if J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had handled the Kathua rape case properly, Singh said, “She could have handled this more seriously, taken matters into her hands right from the beginning and taken a firm stand” to bring the guilty to book without delay.

He said that there might have been huge pressures on her from her coalition partner, the BJP, to go slow on the matter, especially since two BJP ministers from her government had come out in favour of the rape accused.

 “There are bound to pressure…but if it is carried to such an extent that you can condone the sad demise of an eight-year-old girl having been raped and kept for a week in a temple, that is the most shocking thing,” said Singh.

The father of three daughters, Singh added that he was distressed to read reports about the child, especially when her father said the girl was so young that she “didn’t know who is Hindu and who is Muslim, what is her left or right hand”.

The fact that an attempt was made by the BJP party to give the incident a communal colour, and that the “two (former) ministers (in the J&K) government were also party to fanning communal tensions is also disgraceful”, he said.

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