AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday said the heinous crimes taking place in different parts of the country should not be linked to religion and the guilty, irrespective of their community, should be punished.

The Hyderabad MP decried attempts by a section of media to give wide coverage to incidents where the accused belonged to a particular community but ignoring crimes committed by people from another community.

On a special court in Punjab convicting six of the seven accused in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua, Owaisi recalled that BJP leaders including ministers had come on the roads in support of the accused.

“BJP should respond why their ministers had come out in support of the accused,” he told reporters here.

On the killing of two-year-old girl in Aligarh, Owaisi said nobody came out in support of accused Zahid and Aslam. “We are condemning all such incidents. Justice should be done in all cases, irrespective of the community the accused come from,” he said.

Addressing a public meeting late on Sunday night, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief wondered why the ‘pro-BJP’ media was silent on the incident in Indore where one Shiva Rao raped and killed a five-year-old girl.

“In Gaya, Bihar Chintu Kumar raped a 12-year-old girl and in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, a 12-year-old Dalit girl was raped in front of her parents. In Hyderabad, one Vishnu raped a deaf and dumb girl and he was convicted.”

Owaisi also found fault with the manner in which a section of media tried to play up an incident that occurred in Hyderabad last week in which relatives of a woman stabbed a youth because he had married her against their wishes.

The MP said the parents should realize that they can only advise their daughters what is good for them but can’t forcibly stop them from marrying somebody they like.