Questioning those who demanded justice for Kangana Ranaut but are now silent after the Hathras gang-rape case, Shiv Sena leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said had a Hathras-like incident taken place in Maharashtra, there would have been demands to dismiss the government.

“Those who supported Kangana Ranaut’s baseless comments against Mumbai and Maharashtra and demanded justice for her when her illegal construction was pulled down are now silent and have become invisible when it comes to demanding justice for the Hathras victim,” Raut wrote in his party’s mouthpiece Saamana.

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In an indirect attack at Kangana Ranaut, Raut said, “The Hathras victim was not a celebrity and she was not on drugs. She did not have any illegal construction (built by) spending crores of rupees. She was a simple girl whose dead body was illegally burnt in the dead of the night. All this happened in Yogi’s‘Ramrajya’.”

The Shiv Sena leader also compared the Hathras incident to “atrocities being committed against Hindu girls in Pakistan” in his weekly column.

“We hear that such incidents happen in Pakistan where Hindu girls are kidnapped, raped and murdered. What happened in Hathras was no different. So far no one has called Hathras a Pakistan.”

Raut stated that the reaction to the Hathras incident would have been different, had it taken place in Shiv Sena coalition-ruled Maharashtra.

“If a Hathras-like incident had taken place in Maharashtra, demands would have been raised for dismissal of the state government and for imposition of President’s rule,” Raut said.

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Raut said 12,257 incidents of gang-rape have been reported in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh from 2014 to 2019, “but justice is given considering caste, religion and political affiliations”.