Deliberate mobilisation in Muzaffarnagar led to riots : UP government to NHRC

NEW DELHI: The UP government told the National Human Rights Commission that last year’s Muzaffarnagar riots were the result of deliberate acts of mobilization and Muzaffarnagar was specifically targeted rather than the economically prosperous region of Meerut, in what seems UP’s new theory on the plausible cause for the riots.

In his deposition this January before NHRC Chairman Justice KG Balakrishnan, UP’s Principal Secretary (Home) AK Gupta said an eve-teasing incident led to violence spreading to Muzaffar nagar and Shamli districts.

He informed that these two districts have never been communally volatile and that the violence which spread was due to deliberate acts of mobilisation.

“This area was deliberately chosen to incite violence whereas the neighbouring, economically prosperous areas such as Meerut were left out.” He stated that Meerut and the adjoining belt is the centre of India’s $2.8 billion animal products export market to the UAE, Malaysia, Philippines and Iran. “This has brought prosperity and has helped Muslims in this belt to consolidate their economic gains,” Gupta said.

Jawed Usmani, UP’s ex-chief secretary, told NHRC it was “unique in the sense” that for the first time such communal violence had spread to the rural areas. “It is easier to control riots in urban areas...but it is far more difficult to address such situations in rural areas,” Usmani said.