Shah slams BRS, Cong for ignoring Hyderabad liberation martyrs

BIDAR: Union home minister Amit Shah raised the political heat in poll-bound Karnataka and adjacent Telangana by slamming both the Congress and the K.Chandrashekar Rao-led BRS government for "hesitating" to celebrate the Hyderabad Liberation Day on September 17 and for failing to remember those who fought and sacrificed their lives to liberate Hyderabad from the clutches of the "brutal Nizam rule”.

Shah, who inaugurated a martyrs’ memorial in Gorata in Karnataka's Bidar, where 200 people were massacred by the Razakar militia, stated that after the BJP is re-elected in Karnataka and the grand memorial is built, the party will celebrate the next Hyderabad Liberation Day at Gorata.

“The people of Hyderabad state were crushed under the Nizam rule even after India got independence from the British,” he said. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi respected the aspirations of Telangana people and decided to celebrate Hyderabad Liberation Day every year,” he said.

He was addressing a large public gathering after inaugurating the memorial at what is called the “Jallianwala Bagh of South India”, unveiling a statue of the first home minister late Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Shah and hoisting a 103-feet high National Flag at Gorata in Bidar.

Shah stated that 200 people were massacred on May 9, 1948. It was an important day for an “emotional person like him” because the "ruthless army of Nizam butchered hundreds of people" for hoisting a 2.5 ft Tricolour.

Despite the massacre, the Congress had never remembered those who fought and sacrificed their lives for Hyderabad liberation only for its greed for vote bank. “Today, I can proudly proclaim that I hoisted the 103-feet Tricolour, which no one can ever reach,” Shah remarked.

Paying his tributes to Sardar Patel, Shah stated that without Patel, Hyderabad would not have been liberated. "The Telangana government is hesitating to celebrate the Hyderabad Liberation Day (September 17), but the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership has decided to celebrate the day in a grand manner," Shah added.

He said that the BJP had celebrated it last year in Telangana and this year too they will celebrate the day.

Shah recalled that eight years ago he had visited the place as BJP president and laid the foundation for the martyrs memorial with a direction to the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha workers to build it. He said he was pleased that eight years later, he had got the opportunity to inaugurate it.

Shah said a BJP government in Karnataka would build a grand memorial costing Rs 50 crore.