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Rationalist seeks HC help to protect himself

A rationalist in Gujarat has sought the High Court’s intervention to save himself from the fate of his slain counterparts…

Rationalist seeks HC help to protect himself

Gujarat High Court.

A rationalist in Gujarat has sought the High Court’s intervention to save himself from the fate of his slain counterparts like Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare.

Jayant Pandya, who under the banner of Jan Vigyan Jatha had been exposing various superstitious beliefs and rituals for three decades now, has petitioned the Gujarat High Court complaining about the policemen who have not taken any action against the people who had attacked him on the last lunar eclipse night on 31 January.

Pandya was hospitalised for a few days after he was attacked by a group of Jamnagar-based Brahmins when he was speaking at a school in Rajkot against the superstitions associated with lunar eclipse.

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The Brahmins who attacked Pandya on the night of the lunar eclipse had a grudge against him as he had earlier organised a police raid to prevent them from duping a person of Rs 35,000 through some rituals which were ‘designed’ to get his doctor daughter married and employed in Mumbai.

This group of Brahmins had earlier threatened Pandya that he would meet the fate of Dabholkar, the Maharashtra-based rationalist who was killed for his campaigns against superstitions.

In the nearly two months since Pandya was attacked on the night of lunar eclipse, the Rajkot police have not done anything to nab the culprits who had attacked him, Pandya told the High Court in his petition.

Pandya told The Statesman on Thursday that the petition has been admitted by the High Court and it would come up for hearing on 2 April when the policemen have been summoned to appear.

With Dabholkar and Pansare’s murders still fresh in the mind, Pandya is apprehensive that he too may be finished by the right-wing forces since he has been branded as ‘anti-Brahmin’ and ‘anti-Hindu’ due his 30 years of work against rituals and superstitions.

Pandya had to approach the High Court three years earlier too when a ‘tantrik’ (black magician) had named him in his suicide note, saying that the rationalist’s activities were affecting his business. The High Court had quashed the complaint against Pandya then.

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