Please step down: PDP leader Iltija Mufti slams Nitish over hijab incident

Srinagar, Dec 16 (PTI) Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Iltija Mufti on Tuesday called Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's act of pulling down the veil off a Muslim woman's face as "shameful", saying he should step down with decency and dignity if his health was not good.

"This is a shameful act. We respect Nitish ji because he is an old man. But, if you are that old that God forbid, you have become so much senile that on one hand you award her a degree and on the other you bring her veil down," Mufti told reporters here.

The PDP leader said Kumar is the chief minister of Bihar, which is a state where many Muslims reside.

"Do you not know what it means for a Muslim woman who puts on her veil...just because you are the chief minister, you have no right to bring her veil down," she said.

She warned the Bihar CM against repeating such an incident.

"You see how people there with Nitish ji were laughing; they thought of it as a joke. Bihar's deputy CM, who is a BJP leader, was laughing. I want to ask them if we had pulled a ghoongat (traditional veil worn by Hindu woman after marriage) of a woman, how would you have felt?" "I respect Nitish because he is an elder, and that is why I am not saying much. But if you do it the next time, then we will not care. It does not become your right to pull off the veil of a Muslim woman and mock her. Power does not give you a right to humiliate us Muslims; you please remember that. If you repeat it, then we will have to set everything right," she added.

The PDP leader said Kumar is a senior citizen and if his health "is not good, then please step down with decency and dignity".

"I would appeal to the government in Bihar to have a new chief minister because their CM is old now and senile, because of which he does not differentiate properly. Why is a man who is incapable...being asked to head a state? We ask you (Bihar government) to immediately take cognisance of this, and it is not a joke disrobing a Muslim woman in full public view like this," she said. PTI SSB AMJ AMJ