In both the cases the killers had come with a plan, they knew that there was no securityAfter bowing and paying obeisance, he immediately launched a deadly attack.In both cases no one had any idea that this could happen
May 21 is the death anniversary of the former Prime Minister. Do you know that there were two big leaders of the country who were murdered in independent India. The killer bowed before him. In both the situations, these leaders did not even realize that the very next moment after saluting them was going to prove fatal for them.
first incident
The first case is of Mahatma Gandhi. The day was 31 January 1948. It was about 5 o’clock in the evening. Mahatma Gandhi was moving towards the prayer meeting. Meanwhile, a young man comes and greets him.
Manu, who was walking with Gandhiji, tries to push the young man aside, brother, move away, it is time for Gandhiji’s prayer meeting, he is getting late, by the time she could say this, the young man bowed down in front of Gandhiji. That’s what happened.
Suddenly he got up, retreated from there, raised his pistol and fired three bullets at a time into Gandhiji’s chest. Gandhiji fell down saying ‘haram’. Then within some time he left his life. Godse again told in the court why he had bowed and saluted Gandhiji.
Godse told the court – why he had bowed down
As the case progressed, Nathuram started speaking in the court. He linked the whole thing to the Crusades. He quoted Bhagavad Gita many times.
People wondered why he had bowed before Gandhi before killing him. Godse replied to this in the same way as Arjun first saluted Dronacharya by shooting an arrow at his feet. Then he killed him with the next arrow, in the same way he also first saluted Gandhiji and then killed him. However, when Nathuram bowed and bowed to Gandhiji, he said Namaste Gandhiji.
In his speech, Godse repeated the names of all the warriors of Mahabharata. He was not able to extricate himself from mythology. He was also seeing the tragic bloody game after Partition as an imaginary war in Kurukshetra, in which he himself was Arjun.
second incident
After this the second incident happened 33 years ago. This incident happened with Rajiv Gandhi. On 21 May 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was on a campaign tour during the elections. He was late that day. At night he reached Sriperumbudur near Chennai to deliver a speech. When he reached there, some crowd had already gathered.
Suddenly a young girl moved forward, leaving the other people behind. He also took the initiative to bow down and pay obeisance to Rajiv Gandhi. While Rajiv Gandhi was lifting him, he pressed the trigger of the bomb planted in his back. There was a loud explosion. That young girl killed Rajiv Gandhi through this. However, 16 more people were killed in this explosion.
The name of this girl was Dhanu. He had saluted Rajiv Gandhi so that he could bend down and detonate the bomb planted in his back.
There was lax security in both cases
It must be said that in both the cases there was lax security. The security cordon that should have been created around Gandhiji was not there, even though it was believed that Gandhiji’s life was in danger. Although the Home Ministry then wanted to provide security to Gandhiji, he flatly refused to take it.
In the second case, Chandrashekhar government had withdrawn the security of Rajiv Gandhi. There was no security around him, so it became very easy to kill him. He was murdered by LTTE and it knew that Rajiv Gandhi did not have security, hence it would be very easy to reach him. However, the government had indicated to Rajiv Gandhi that his life was in danger. He should not have gone into the crowd.
Tags: mahatma gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi
FIRST PUBLISHED : May 21, 2024, 16:49 IST