India: Right wing activists set fire to ex-minister’s home

Dehradun, India: Right wing activists attacked and set fire to the home of a former Indian foreign minister, police said.

Salman Khurshid, from the main opposition Congress party, published a book last month in which he compared the kind of Hindu nationalism that has flourished under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to extremist Islamist groups like Daesh.

Police said a mob of around 20 people from a hardline local Hindu group massed outside Khurshid’s house near the northern city of Nainital on Monday.

“They shouted slogans, threw stones, broke several windows, ransacked (the entry) and set fire (to a door),” local police chief Jagdish Chandra told AFP.

The Times of India reported that the group had set fire to an effigy of Khurshid, fired shots and threatened the daughter-in-law of the caretaker with a gun.

Khurshid, who served as foreign minister from 2012-14, was away with his family at the time of the incident but posted images of the aftermath of the attack on social media.

“Shame is too ineffective a word,” Khurshid, 68, said on social media.

“I hoped to open these doors to my friends who have left this calling card. Am I still wrong to say this cannot be Hinduism,” he added.

Shashi Tharoor, a prominent lawmaker from Congress, said that the attack on Khurshid’s home was “disgraceful.”

Khurshid “is a statesman who has... always articulated a moderate, centrist, inclusive vision of the country domestically. The mounting levels of intolerance in our politics should be denounced by those in power,” Tharoor said on Twitter.