Hindu Law Board offers Rs 51 cr for killing M F Hussain February 23, 2006 01:05 IST The Hindu Personal Law Board on Wednesday announced a Rs 51 crore reward for eliminating artist M F Hussain. Meanwhile, a Congress minority cell leader offered Rs 11 lakh to any ‘patriot’ to chop off the painter’s hands for hurting Hindu sentiments. “Anyone who kills Hussain for making obscene paintings of goddess Sarswati and Bharat Mata, the Danish cartoonist, those in the German company printing pictures of Ram and Krishna on tissue paper and the French filmmaker desecrating Lord Shiva will be given Rs 51 crore in cash,” Ashok Pandey, board president, said in a statement in Lucknow. “Peace will not prevail on earth unless such people are eliminated,” he added. Madhya Pradesh Congress committee minority cell vice-chairman Akthar Baig, in a statement in Indore, said the painter had ‘played with the sentiments of the people and tried to disrupt communal harmony in the past by painting nude pictures of Hindu gods and goddess and now of Bharat Mata’. It would be in the ‘interest of the nation if a patriot will chop off his hands. I will give that person Rs 11 lakh’, he said. Baig asked the government to take back all the honours bestowed on the noted painter and declare him a ‘traitor’. In an Indore court, Baig had earlier filed a petition against Bollywood actor Dharmendra’s purported second marriage to Hema Malini.

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What thing would never happen again (the denial or the holocaust)? So if people never denied a historical event, how much does that really ensure it cannot happen again? Certainly, raison d’etre of that law is arguable. My point was that there are no absolutes. People who so absolutely support freedom of speech ie without any qualifications, are equally mistaken as those who equate the cartoons case to holocaust denial. That being said, jailing the ex-holocaust denier seems too much (in this particular case)- he spoke decades ago, he no longer condones holocaust-denial and he was a loony historian whom nobody would care for, anyway. Looks like a serious case of Jewish-behind kissing. Also, it will definitely provide islamic rabble-rousers with much more ammo.

Even Denmark, If I am not mistaken, has laws against printing Holocaust related literature. Besides the biggest HYPOCRACY of these so called “freedom of speech”ers is that the same paper did not print a Cartoon that would depict Christian faith in unflattering way.

I am all for passing laws against Holocaust denying, they need to get off the high horse of “freedom of speech” BS. The reason they have laws against Holocause denying, is that its infalmatory. so were the “cartoons”.

I think this situation is different. Austria was partially responsible for the Holocaust (an actual crime). It makes sense that they would pass a law against Holocaust denying so that such a thing would never happen again. In the case of the Cartoon, Muslims haven’t been rounded up and killed in Austria. If that had happened first, THEN this would be hypocritical