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HomeIndiaFormer CBI chief Nageswara Rao slammed for calling Swami Agnivesh’s death ‘good...

Former CBI chief Nageswara Rao slammed for calling Swami Agnivesh’s death ‘good riddance’

Rao Friday tweeted that Swami Agnivesh was an ‘anti-Hindu donning saffron clothes’. Agnivesh died Friday after a multiple-organ failure and cardiac arrest.

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New Delhi: Former CBI additional director and retired IPS officer M. Nageswara Rao’s statement calling activist Swami Agnivesh’s death a “good riddance” has invited flak for him and triggered outrage on social media.

On Friday night, just hours after Agnivesh’s death, Rao put out a tweet saying he was an “anti-Hindu donning saffron clothes”.

My grievance against Yamaraj is why did he wait this long! https://t.co/5g7oKL62pO

— M. Nageswara Rao IPS (@MNageswarRaoIPS) September 11, 2020

 

“My grievance against Yamaraj is why did he wait this long,” he further wrote.

Agnivesh, 80, died at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in New Delhi Friday evening after a multiple-organ failure and a cardiac arrest.

As the founder-chairperson of the Bandhua Mukti Morcha (Bonded Labour Liberation Front), Agnivesh gained recognition across the country and the globe for his efforts to end bonded labour.

He was also a vocal opponent of communal politics and implored people to “unitedly fight communal forces”.


Also read: IPS Nageshwar Rao who lost his job as interim CBI chief had these corruption complaints


Rao slammed

Many on Twitter called out Rao for spreading “hate” and for misrepresenting Hinduism.

 

Activist Rahul Easwar reacted to Rao’s tweet saying: “May Bhagwan Krishna save #Hindu & #Hindustan from #Hate Virus.”

Historian Irfan Habib called out Rao and questioned what he would have done “as a police officer”.

 

Many others such as lawyer Navdeep Singh pointed out that he was serving in the government until recently, “with such thoughts at the back of his mind”.

 

However, despite the backlash, Rao insisted that he wasn’t wrong.

 

Not the first time

This, however, is not the first time Rao has been in the eye of storm for his tweets.

In July this year, Rao had tweeted a series of graphics on the “story of Project Abrahamisation of Hindu Civilisation”.

 

Many retired IPS officers had slammed Rao for his comments at the time. 

Rao, a 1986-batch IPS officer, was shunted out as CBI’s additional director in July 2019 after spending one year in that post. He was then appointed as the General (DG) Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guard, the tenure of which ended in July this year. 

Rao was made the interim CBI chief in 2018 amid a spat between then Director General Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana.

Prior to that, Rao had a controversial career with several complaints of financial irregularities, influencing investigations and scuttling probes against him.

As ThePrint reported earlier, Rao has been accused of financial irregularities right from his time as the chief of fire service directorate in Bhubaneswar in 2016.

Some of the complaints against him included scuttling and influencing investigations within the CBI, misappropriation of funds while in office and his wife’s involvement in a shell company.


Also read: SC held ex-CBI interim chief M. Nageshwar Rao in contempt — and told him to sit in a corner


 

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Agnivesh insulted and mocked hindu dhaarmik beliefs. He had mocked at amarnath, pashupatinath, sabrimala, tirupati, mahabharat and termed it as pakhand. He violated the constitutional freedom of religious beliefs of hindus in the guise of freedom of speech. If according to him hindus dhaarmik beliefs are fake and pakhand then should hindus stop worshipping their deities, should hindus borrow religious beliefs from abhrahmic religions. Did he mean to say that hindus belief are bakwaas and so they should give up such beliefs. By saying so didn’t he deny the freedom of religious beliefs to hindus provided under constitution. By insulting and mocking hindus religious beliefs what he wanted to achieve. His freedom of speech insulting hindus beliefs was just for sake of criticism or he wanted hindus to borrow religious beliefs or was it his agenda of proselytizing. What could be his intention,we need to look into it. Was he agent of conversion lobby to insult hindus beliefs so that hindus may give up their dharm. It seems to be so because when he had nothing to say about religious beliefs of abrahmic then it was certainly his agenda to facilitate conversion of hindus to abrahmic religions. Those who support his so-called freedom of speech and his so-called liberal views, are actually hindu haters. He and his ilk are the persons who had sown the seeds of hatred against hindus and they cant blame hindus for present so-called hate environment.

  2. Of all people , Irfan Habib , a rabid communalist and anti-Hindu historian, has the gumption to speak on this issue. This cabal of so called liberals has to be exposed at all levels, especially in front of our younger generation, so that further distortion of our history does not take place. Irfan Habib was at the forefront , under the Congress regimes at centre, when our true history was being hidden from us and a false narrative was being spread. Of course he will be pained at the comments made against so called ‘Swami’, who was worse than many Jehadis in denigrating the Hindus, Hinduism and Hindutva.

  3. Rao’s comments are crass, disgraceful and in bad taste. He is also a disgrace to the IPS. Thanks to the posting of incompetent and corrupt officers like him, institutions like the CBI – once headed by the finest in the IPS – have now fallen into disrepute.

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