Supreme Court raps UP government, Centre for Muzzafarnagar riots

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday rapped the Akhilesh Singh government in Uttar Pradesh and the Central government for failing to ‘smell’ the Muzaffarnagar riots and take timely steps to prevent it from happening, in a ruling which bodes ill for UPA and the SP which are majorly banking on minority support in the 2014 general elections.

“Had central and state intelligence agencies smelt these problems in advance and alerted the district administration, the unfortunate incidents could have been prevented. Thus, we prima facie hold the state government responsible for being negligent at the initial stage in not anticipating the communal violence and for taking necessary steps for its prevention,” the court said. The court, however, stopped short of entrusting the probe into the riots to the CBI or an SIT as demanded by members of the affected community and NGOs and instead focused on issuing further directions to the state to further mitigate the plight of the affected.

This includes taking action against all those accused of indulging in the violence and awarding compensation to the families of those dead either in the violence or in the cold wave that hit the displaced in the camps. Those still aggrieved could knock on the top court’s door after two months. The court also warned the state against any recurrence of any such incidents, promising the wrong end of the stick for officers in charge of law and order in these districts.

A three bench judge comprising CJI P Sathasivam, Ranjana Prakash Desai and Ranjan Gogoi, did not mince words on the failure of the state and the central government to anticipate the riots of Sept 7, 2013, which according to some estimates resulted in the deaths of over 50 people and displacement of at least another 10,000 people in the western UP districts of Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Saharanpur and Meerut.