The horrific double murder of two kids by Sajid and Javed, two Muslim brothers in the city of Badaun in Uttar Pradesh has caused anguish and consternation in the minds of people. More so, because the mother of the two kids was trying to give Rs 5,000 to both the killers before the sordid act was committed. Since the victims were Hindus and the killers were Muslims, there was communal tension in Badaun. Local residents set fire to the hair cutting saloon run by the killers. A few hours later, on Tuesday night, Badaun police killed one of the killers, Sajid, in an encounter, while Javed fled. He later surrendered in Bareilly on Thursday morning. The motive behind the horrendous killings is still unclear. There was no past enmity between the two families. The third kid was also attacked, but he locked himself inside a room and saved himself. The father of the kids, Vinod, is a local contractor, while the mother, Sangeeta, runs a beauty parlour in the building. The two families knew each other and on Tuesday, Sajid came to Sangeeta and said that he needed money because his wife was pregnant. Sangeeta gave him Rs 5,000 cash. Sajid went to the first floor to see the beauty parlour. He called 13-year-old Ayush and his six-year-old brother Ahan to the first floor, while Sangeeta made tea for him in the kitchen. The third kid, nine-year-old kid Piyush took a glass of water to Sajid, but ran back when he saw that Sajid had slashed the necks of both his brothers with a knife. Sajid came downstairs shouting that he had fulfilled his objective, and he fled on a motorbike with Javed. Later, police, while searching the two killers, got information from a villager near Sheikhupur, 5 km away, that the two brothers were trying to hide the blood-stained clothes inside a bush. Sajid fired at the police injuring a constable, but in the encounter, Sajid was killed. Police force has been deployed in view of communal tension. A flurry of statements were made by Samajwadi Party and BJP over this incident. Akhilesh Yadav’s uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav questioned why police killed Sajid even before the probe had begun. Akhilesh Yadav said, the double murder could have been avoided had police been pro-active. Congress leader Pramod Tiwari alleged that crime incidents were on the rise during BJP’s ‘double-engine rule’. BJP leader Siddharth Nath Singh alleged that Samajwadi Party was trying to politicize the horrific murders instead of showing sympathy to the bereaved family. The brutal murder of the two innocent kids is unpardonable. Now that Javed has been arrested, police may try to unravel the actual motive behind these killings. The most surprising part is that both Sajid and Javed knew the family of the kids, and their parents had helped the two Muslim brothers in the past. And yet, this barbaric murder? The killers had no criminal background. No police in the world can take preventive action when two families knew each other closely. For Akhilesh Yadav to say that the lives of the two kids could have been saved, is nothing but a political statement. Secondly, to describe the killing of Sajid in police encounter as a fake one, is nothing but an attempt to score political brownie points. How can any person or politician have sympathy for the killers? To politicize this gruesome double murder is unfortunate.