Cultured? Then don't question

New Delhi: Junior home minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday said the habit of questioning authorities and police was "not a good culture". "First of all, we should stop this habit of raising doubts, questioning the authorities and the police. This is not a good culture. But what we have been observing in India is that people have developed this habit of raising unnecessary doubts and questions," Rijiju told reporters who asked him about the Bhopal encounter in which eight Simi operatives were gunned down. "It is not good to raise questions on security forces dealing with terrorists just on the basis of videos. We are facing challenges on the border with ceasefire violation, and our forces are responding," Rijiju said, referring to unverified footage that suggested some of the Simi members were unarmed and might have been trying to surrender. The Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind, the largest Muslim organisation in the country, condemned the killings and said circumstances suggested a "well-staged fake encounter, an encounter in which laws of the country and human rights have been negated".