Shambhu Lal Regar, the man who burnt and hacked Malda labourer Afrazul Khan in Rajasthan’s Rajsamand district last year, might contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, reported News18.
A lesser known political group in Uttar Pradesh called ‘Uttar Pradesh Navnirman Sena’ has reportedly offered Regar a ticket and has claimed that he has accepted the offer, according to the News18 report.
Amit Jani, National President of the Uttar Pradesh Navnirman Sena, told News18:
The Uttar Pradesh Navnirman Sena has decided that for the Agra Lok Sabha seat, the party’s candidate will be Shambhu Lal Regar. He will contest the election from inside Jodhpur jail, where he is currently lodged.
On asking Jani if Regar has accepted the offer to fight the elections from Agra, Jani told News18, "I have been in touch with him for a long time now and I am pleased to say that he has agreed to be our candidate from Agra. We want only Hindutva faces to contest elections on our party's tickets and there can be nobody better than him. We will soon make a formal announcement."
The Agra seat is currently represented by BJP's Ramshankar Katheria, the Chairman of the National Commission of Scheduled Castes (NCSC).
Who is Shambhu Lal Regar?
Regar is cooling his heels in jail for murdering Khan last year on 6 December and filming the crime along with his minor nephew.
Regar had killed Afrazul while, in a video, ranting against “love jihad”, a term used by sections of Hindu activists to describe marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men.
Regar had defended his actions by saying that he had only hacked Mohammad Afrazul, to death so he could protect a Hindu woman from the clutches of ‘love-jihad’.
In January, the Rajsamand police had filed a chart sheet after concluding that Regar had an illegitimate relationship with the woman whom he referred to as his ‘Hindu sister’ in the videos, though he strongly denies this in the second video.
In February, Regar uploaded two videos from inside his cell in the prison, where he was seen speaking like a Hindu fanatic for several minutes, calling upon Hindus to stand united and bring ‘Ram Rajya’ in India.
Even after the incident sparked furore across the country, Hindu groups in Jodhpur had taken out his tableaus on Ram Navami glorifying him as the God sitting on a throne.
Jani has also been arrested in the past for a threatening to murder former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar in a 2016 Facebook post, as per News18.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)