The Shri Rajput Karani Sena Chief, Suraj Pal Amu, who was in the news recently for openly resorting to hate speech against Muslims, was named BJP spokesperson in Haryana on Friday, 11 June.
Amu had previously come to the limelight in 2017 for announcing a reward for beheading actor Deepika Padukone over the controversy surrounding the film ‘Padmaavat’.
State President for Haryana BJP, Om Prakash Dhankar, made the annoucement on Twitter.
In a video posted by Amu on his Facebook page, he can be heard making a speech before a large assembly of people in Haryana, asserting his endorsement of the lynching of a local Muslim man that took place a few weeks ago.
Amu could be seen validating the violence by the perpetrators of the Asif Khan murder case.
Khan, who hailed from Mewat’s Khalilpur Kheda village, was lynched allegedly by a mob of Gujjar men on the night of 16 May when he was returning home after buying medicines.
In the caption for the video, Amu said, “Thousands came for the Hindu Mahapanchayat at Indri (Nuh) today. One who submits to a crime is a greater criminal than the one who commits it. If anyone insults our Hindu religion, will you keep silent? Only true Indians comment.”
A law graduate, Amu was a member of the RSS’s student wing – ABVP – and served as its member from 1985 to 1988. Amu has held several posts in the BJP over the years.
He has served as the State Secretary, State Vice-President, and National Executive Member of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the youth wing of the party.
He was made the spokesperson of Haryana BJP in 2013 and from 2014-2019, Amu served as the Chief Media Coordinator for BJP Haryana. He tendered his resignation in 2018 after being after being granted bail in the 'Padmaavat' case but his resignation was not accepted and he continued to remain the spokesperson of BJP Haryana till 2019.
In 2019, he became the President of Shri Rajput Karni Sena, a Rajasthan-based interest group formed to protect and promote the concerns of the Rajput community. The interest group has been accused of incitement of a number of violent incidents in the past few years.
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