BJP’s Ishrat Jahan attends ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ event, gets threats by radicals

Tribune News Service 
Kolkata, July 18 

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Triple talaq petitioner Ishrat Jahan, who joined the BJP last year, today alleged that she was threatened by radicals for wearing a “hijab” while attending a Hindu religious programme on Tuesday.

She alleged that she was accosted by a crowd outside her building at Pilkhana in Howrah when she was returning home from her son’s school on Wednesday afternoon. Muslim men allegedly confronted her for attending a “Hanuman Chalisa” event wearing a “hijab”. 

“A huge crowd gathered outside my house and asked me why I attended the event wearing a ‘naqaab’. They accused me of getting Muslim women from the locality to attend the event,” Ishrat Jahan said in a televised interview. 

According to Jahan, she attended the event as many Hindu persons take part in Namaz reading events and she doesn’t see anything wrong in it. 

“Now, I am being pressured and people are suggesting to beating me up and chasing me out of the house. I am being abused and threatened with dire consequences,” said Jahan, who has a 14-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son.

Following the trouble, Ishrat, who has filed a complaint at the Golabari police station, left her Pilkhana residence to stay with a relative.

According to police, the practice of public reading of the “Hanuman Chalisa” in the area was started recently by local BJP leaders. The BJP started the programme in response to offering of namaz by Muslims on the streets on Friday. The police were asked to block streets for the event as they do in the case of namaz.