Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi visited at last the Muzaffarnagar riot area and saw for real the communal divide created in western UP by this fabricated communal violence.
HONEST INDIA has an objective to enlarge the news and views coming out in open by the residents, the media, administration's version and last the most important the statements and accusations of all the political parties :
The Congress party enclave's (as above) visit was first greeted with disappointment by the majority Jat residents of the village Malikpur (attatched to village Kaval ; the epic centre of riot ), when they lamented that, why they chose to meet Muslims only in the relief camps in Muzaffarnagar but ignored those from the majority community who have been equally affected by the communal clashes ?
Why this should not be treated as taking sides by the tallest national leaders and the prime minister of nation, people will ask ?
Obviously Hindu jats did not seem to be impressed by Sonia and Rahul either, even though the mother-son duo had, on the advice of a UP government officer, made brief unscheduled stops at jat-dominated Bawali and Khanjpura. Jats alleged disparity and felt they were ignored. The unanimous reaction from the jats of the village was, "Haven't we lost our dear ones? It seems that only they (Muslims) have been pained," ?
People anguish here is directed against the political class as a whole, as they said, "So many people from our community were brutally butchered over the past few weeks with our meetings being hijacked. There are so many villages in this whole belt where so many jats have also left their villages due to fear and they are hiding at residences of their relatives or in other cities. However, the PM only comes and meets people in relief camps of Muslims.
Hasn't my son died in the same violence," asked Ravinder Singh, father of Gaurav who along with his cousin Sachin was killed in a clash at Kawal.
The PM and the Gandhis, accompanied by minister of state for home R P N Singh, must have tasted the havoc minorities had faced when they interacted with Muslim victims at the Bassi Kalan relief camp. Those at the camp, like others in Tawli, detailed horror stories and were almost unanimous that "they (Muslims) were not going to go back to their villages even if the jats came calling".
HONEST INDIA asks is this not the divide, nourished by the so called secular parties ? Are they champions of "welfare and protection of the minorities" or in effect crusader of the innocent minority members ? Just for polarising them to suit their vote bank divisive policy.
RLD leader Jayant Chaudhary said the CM's visit to Muzaffaranagar was an "exercise in futility" and accused the SP and BJP of colluding to polarise the voters in an election year. Chaudhary questioned,"The BJP leaders sparked off the violence and were let off by the SP government. Why were they not arrested despite FIRs having been lodged against them?"
The Congress legislators demanded Akhilesh's resignation, holding his government responsible for the riots and for being "hand-in-glove" with the communal forces. CLP leader Pradeep Mathur said 548 days of SP rule had seen 107 instances of communal violence, an average of one riot every five days.
Two BJP MLAs Hukum Singh and Suresh Rana (booked for making inflammatory speeches) were present in the Assembly House while the state government claimed "efforts were on" to arrest the guilty. During a visit to Muzaffarnagar the chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had promised to bring to book all those behind the communal flare-up, regardless of their clout.
A senior official said the two MLAs could not be arrested because of the immunity enjoyed by them on the assembly premises. But Lakshmikant Bajpayi, state BJP president, dared the government to arrest the two MLAs who remained in the city after the day's proceedings in the House.
Muzaffarnagar communal riot was more serious than the 2002 Gujarat riots, as the number of displacement figure given by the UP government to the Supreme Court ; that the recent riots forced over 40,000 people to flee 94 villages in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts, where 44 people were killed and places of worship of Muslims and Hindus extensively damaged.
The commissioner, Bhuvnesh Kumar, indicated that it was a well orchestrated communal conflagration where rioters targeted Muslims or Hindus, whichever was in minority in a locality. Places of worship of both Muslims and Hindus were destroyed, he said in his September 13 report to the principal secretary (home).
As expected, Muzaffarnagar violence dominated first day of the UP Vidhan Sabha's monsoon session as Opposition united and jumped into the well of the House shouting slogans and forcing the Speaker to finally adjourn the session till September 18. But Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party members chose to return to their seats, reluctant probably as not to seen aligned with BJP members, who begun a sit-in in the well, shouting slogans.
HONEST INDIA observes political parties cannot even sit together and work for the benefit of their own people of state in such difficult time. They demand resignation of Akhilesh government but not jointly with BJP, rather separately. How this will be different if a bad government is forced to resign by BJP ?
The disillusioned Muslim face of the Samajwadi party minister Mohammad Azam Khan, finally made an appearance after his week long absence from the meetings of the SP party for the government's wrong functioning in the Muzaffarnagar incident, and squarely blamed BJP for orchestrating riots in the region.