Congress too crossing limits for Muslim appeasement
While, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde is trying to pocket Muslims votes by issuing advisory to state governments not to harass any Muslim in the name of terrorism and to recruit 70,000 Muslim youth in para-military forces, Mulayam Singh is creating confrontationist situations to prove himself as the only messiah of the Muslims with an eye on the political power at the Centre.
Dr Ravindra Agrawal
The National Commission for Minorities (NCM) in its report after visiting the riot affected areas of Muzaffarnagar raised doubts over the impartial attitude of the Akhilesh Government. The Commission said the haste in transferring the DM and SSP following the triple murder in Kawal village was a wrong step from the law and order point of view. Police had already taken into custody the accused in connection with the murder of two youths on August 27 in the eve-teasing case the same day. But they had to be released following the directives from Lucknow, and false charges were framed against the family members of the youths; the DM and SSP were transferred. This caused deterioration in law and order situation and how the riots escalated and the communal fires were stoked all has been exposed in a sting operation by a television channel recently.
When the local administration had handled and controlled this volatile situation related to law and order, why the Akhilesh Government interfered to worsen the situation? Before we search the answer for this question, we need to know certain facts. After about six months of the coronation of Akhilesh Yadav as Chief Minister, the Urdu media started voicing unrest of the Muslims towards the government. In response to this, the government tried to pacify this unrest and posed itself as the only protector of Muslims by making a number of announcements.
The message disseminated by these populist measures was not in the interest of the society. Can we call it a mere coincidence that the communal tensions flared up due to over a dozen incidents of eve-teasing? Amapur in Etah witnessed communal trouble on August 3 following eve-teasing incident. There was communal strife in Bulandshahar after a gang rape on August 16. On August 22, Khair in Aligarh witnessed communal tension following kidnapping of a girl; Chandpur in Bijnaur burnt in communal fires on September 28 over eve-teasing; and Saurikh in Kannauj also went through similar trauma following which the PAC had to be deployed. All these incidents reflect to one fact that indicated to partial handling of the situation by the police and administration. Had they acted in an impartial way, there would have been no communal tension in the state.
Happenings at Muzaffarnagar indicate that discriminatory attitude and behaviour of the Akhilesh Government is responsible for daily escalating tensions. While the BJP MLAs Suresh Rana and Sangeet Som were arrested for provoking riots and NSA was imposed on them, the same clauses were applied against madrasa director Maulana Nazir, who was taken in a government plane to Lucknow to meet the Chief Minister as a state guest. BSP MLA Kadir Rana was not even touched though he was named accused in this case. Another BSP MLA was released on bail.
On the other hand, the administration refused to accept the memorandum after the Mahapanchayat at Kheda in Meerut district held on September 29 demanding release of BJP MLAs. On the contrary, Crime Branch policemen in mufti fired on the innocent villagers at the Mahapanchayat leading to fresh riot. Photographs of cops firing at unarmed villagers were published by the local newspapers, which has led to further escalation of public anger and unrest. People have given a call for Mahapanchayat of 84 villages on October 10, to seek justice and the administration is hell bent on stopping this at any cost. This has led to confrontation once again.
This is not the first time that such a confrontational situation is witnessed in the state after Mulayam Singh came into position of controlling the government. In December 1989, when he became Chief Minister of UP for the first time, he invited such a communal confrontation by declaring him as messiah of the Muslims. He stopped the karsevaks in October 1990 from entering Ayodhya during the Ramjanamabhoomi movement declaring that yahan parinda bhi par nahi mar sakta. But defying his security, thousands of karsevaks entered Ayodhya from various directions, braving the bullets and sacrificing their lives. This nonetheless made Mulayam as saviour and hero of the Muslims.
Again there was a conflict between the agitators and police in Muzaffarnagar when he came to power in December 1993. That time the agitators were from Uttarakhand. They were demanding a separate state and proceeding to New Delhi to participate in the demonstration of October 2, 1994. They were abruptly stopped at Rampur tri-junction in Muzaffrnagar and police opened indiscriminate fire on them.
Mulayam poses himself as messiah of secularism. These agitators were not demanding anything on communal lines. But still they were fired at. Why? He had once confronted with BSP leader Mayawati at Lucknow Guest House on June 2, 1995. Everybody knows what happned then. The only reason was struggle for power. Today, again in the wake of ensuing Lok Sabha elections due in 2014, Mulayam is trying hard to secure his Muslim vote bank and competing with Congress in this endeavour. While, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde trying to pocket Muslims votes by issuing directive to state governments not to harass any Muslim in the name of terrorism, Mulayam Singh is creating confrontationist situations to prove himself as the only messiah of the Muslims with an eye on the political power at the Centre.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
The order was passed on the petition of Pankaj Kumar and six others, all of them constables or head constables, who were transferred from Muzaffarnagar to far-off places like Chitrakoot, Basti, Banda, Hamirpur and Pratapgarh. The petitioners have alleged that following the riots, police personnel of a particular community were being shifted from western part of UP to other places like eastern side or Bundelkhand and that this was being done following the orders issued by Khan, who has been named in the petition. Fixing 10th October as the next date of hearing in the matter, the court sought counter-affidavits from Khan as well as the state’s chief standing counsel. The court also wanted an affidavit filed by an officer of not below the rank of Deputy Inspector General of Police stating the reasons for the aforesaid transfers. —Dr SK Pandey
Criticising the state government for according special treatment to one of the Muzaffarnagar riot accused, UP unit of BJP said Akhilesh Yadav government has appointed a criminal as a shanti doot who has been entrusted with the job to broker peace in Muzaffarnagar. “Maulana Nazir, against whom an FIR has been registered at Jansath police station on September 2, 2013 under section 147, 188, 344, 353, 153(A) of the IPC for instigating violence in Muzaffarnagar riots was brought to Lucknow by a special aircraft of the UP government for peace talks,” BJP state president Laxmikant Bajpai told reporters. He said incidentally under the same section BJP MLAs have been arrested. “This is the strange working of UP Government. A person charged with criminal offence is sent to jail, while another facing similar charges is made shaanti doot (peace messenger),” Bajpai said.
“The BJP accused UP Government being partisan towards BJP. While an accused like Maulana Nazir has been made the shanti doot of the government and other accused Muslim leaders – Kadir Rana of BSP and Congress leader Saidurzama were yet to be arrested, the government has invoked NSA against two BJP MLAs, Sangeet Singh Som and Suresh Rana,” he said, adding that the name of SP leader Rashid Siddiqui, who had also given inflammatory speech does not figure in the FIR. “NSA has been invoked against 19 people but surprisingly 17 of them are Hindus and just two are Muslims,” he said. He also accused Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi of visiting Muzaffar-nagar along with one of the accused in the riots identified as Badal.
Bajpai also accused both the Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of conniving with the SP in appeasing the Muslims and supporting the government on its one-sided action against the majority community. He said it was unfortunate that the government was yet to convene an all-party meeting for communal harmony in the state and in the districts. It was only doing politics against the majority community. “The BSP leader Swami Prasad Maurya had moved the proposal in the UP assembly to set up a House Committee on the sting operation exposing the involvement of senior UP Minister Azam Khan on the direction of the government,” he said. The BJP leader said government should have asked the Press Council of India (PCI) to probe into the sting if they were really innocent.
—Dr SK Pandey in Lucknow
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