Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad on Wednesday said Jharkhand had become an “akhara” (centre) of lynchings in the country. He was speaking in the Rajya Sabha on the third day of the Monsoon Session in Parliament.

“There is no place left from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, where lynchings did not happen,” the senior Congress leader said. “I’m not saying lynchings never happened in the past. But those were at individual level. This time one or other ruling party person is involved.”

Azad said nobody in the country had the “license to kill”. “This is not a fight between Hindus and Muslims or upper castes and Dalits. This is a fight for the country, for humanity,” he added.

Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi asks the Opposition to not give a “religious colour” to the lynching incidents. “If you do, it helps the miscreants,” Naqvi said. The Union minister also argued that action has been taken against the accused in all cases of mob violence, and arrests have also been made.

‘China is our enemy’

Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav raised the issue of the border standoff between India and China in the Lok Sabha. He accused Beijing and Pakistan of plotting against India. “We have been told that China has prepared for an attack against India,” he said.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister further said that Pakistan is not capable of harming India. “Protecting Bhutan and Sikkim is India’s duty,” he said. “China is our enemy, not Pakistan.”

Salary hike

Earlier in the day, Samajwadi Party MP Naresh Agrawal in the Rajya Sabha demanded an increase in salaries of parliamentarians, saying their salaries was “lesser than” that of their secretaries.

Kerala MP Anto Antony argued that nurses at private hospitals in Kerala were paid only Rs 200 per day. “Even a coolie worker earns more in Kerala,” he said in the Lok Sabha. “The plights of nurses working in private establishments and as contract workers are pathetic across the nation,” he said.