Hyderabad: Telangana Rakshana Sena (TRS) president K Kavitha on Saturday, June 20, said no one in India has the right to call anyone a “Pakistani,” describing such remarks as unacceptable and a reflection of deep-seated prejudice.
Kavitha urged the Telangana Police to take strict action against the secretary of a housing society under Jawaharnagar Police Station limits who used the slur while confronting a resident couple over an unregistered tenant. “The secretary must face punishment for his remark,” she said.
In a post on X, Kavitha cautioned the public against reacting in ways that play into the hands of those who seek to divide. “One bigot does not define an entire community, irrespective of which community the individual belongs to. Let’s not give polarising elements exactly what they want by allowing them to exploit our emotions. Their goal is to divide us, make us fight, and exploit that fracture,” she wrote, urging people to uphold Telangana’s tradition of communal tolerance.
“Let’s not resort to the same profiling we are fighting against,” she added.
What happened
Kavitha’s remarks come two days after a dispute at Janapriya Lake Front Society in Kapra, on the outskirts of Hyderabad, turned communally charged. The managing committee secretary called a resident couple “Pakistani” during an argument over an unregistered tenant, triggering a confrontation with police personnel present at the scene.
In a video that circulated widely on social media, the resident is heard pushing back angrily, citing his family’s military service. His grandfather, he said, had served as a Subedar in the Indian Army. “Don’t call me Pakistani, I am an Indian,” he said.
The secretary is heard responding, “I am just asking if you are a Pakistani, why are you staying here?” The couple further alleged that the secretary accused them of being in the country to plant bombs. “This man accused us of being Pakistani, he says we are here to plant bombs. The police are here but they aren’t doing anything,” the couple said in the video.
MBT steps in
A day before Kavitha’s statement, Majlis Bachao Tehreek spokesperson Amjedullah Khan visited the family on Friday, June 19, after several social media users appealed to him to intervene.
Khan spent nearly five hours tracing the family before meeting Shaik Naseema at the apartment complex. Naseema told him she has lived in the flat with her husband, while her two sons work in Delhi. She alleged that a family friend, Prachee, had been staying with them temporarily after being asked to vacate her previous rented accommodation around Eid-ul-Adha, and that this had become the flashpoint for harassment from the apartment owner and some members of the society.
“Every Indian citizen, irrespective of religion, caste, or community, has the constitutional right to live with dignity and without fear. Branding an Indian Muslim as a ‘Pakistani’ is not only an insult to the individual concerned but also to the Constitution of India and the countless Muslims who have contributed to the nation,” Khan said.
He said Hyderabad has long stood for its Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb and that attempts to divide society along religious lines deserved strong condemnation.
