Muslim group demands SIT probe into 1992 Ayodhya riots

FAIZABAD (UTTAR PRADESH): A Muslim group has asked the Uttar Pradesh government to set up Special Investigation Team ( SIT) to probe the 1992 Ayodhya riots post Babri mosque demolition.

The demand has come after Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government announced an additional compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the victims of 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

The group asked the state government to institute an SIT probe claiming that riot, which took place after demolition of Babri mosque on December 6 and continued till December 7 in which over two dozen people were killed allegedly by activists of Vihswa Hindu Parishad, was "never investigated, no arrests were made and no charge sheet was filed."

"We are not demanding any compensation for the victims of Ayodhya massacre. We are demanding state government to set up an SIT to probe the massacre which was never investigated, no arrests were made, no warrants issued against anyone, and police never filed charge sheet against anyone," senior Jamiat Ulama Hind leader, Captain Afzaal Ahmad Khan told PTI.

"We are demanding justice, so the world would know who killed innocents people in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, in which the police had submitted final report within a month of the riots," Khan said.

Khan, who had carried out relief work for riot victims, said that the Union government has formed SIT to probe the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, which took place 31 years ago.

We are demanding the Samajwadi Party government to form SIT to probe 1992 Ayodhya riots and deliver us justice, he added.

Justifying Khan's demand, veteran SP leader and party's district President Jai Shankar Pandey said he expects that his government would take immediate action.

"This is the duty of our government to find out what happened in Ayodhya after the Babri demolition, who were responsible for those killings. I support the demand and expect my government must take immediate action in this," Pandey, a former MLA, said.