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Ram Navami violence: AIMIM’s Owaisi accuses Guj govt of failing to maintain law and order
The Lok Sabha MP claimed that provocative slogans were raised during the Ram Navami procession and swords were brandished in police presence.
Hitting out at the ruling BJP government in Gujarat, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday accused it of not doing enough to stop the incidents of violence that had erupted in the state on the occasion of Ram Navami.
“Reports of inquiry commissions in the last 20-25 years have shown that if the state government doesn’t want it, violence does not break out,” Owaisi said addressing the media in Ahmedabad.
Referring to the communal clashes in Himmatnagar and Khambhat towns that took place following altercations during Ram Navami processions on April 10, Owaisi said the Gujarat government had failed to maintain law and order.
The Lok Sabha MP claimed that provocative slogans were raised during the Ram Navami procession and swords were brandished in police presence.
In the case of violence at Khambhat town in Anand district, Owaisi alleged that innocent people who were performing Namaz when the incident took place have been booked by the police. A Gujarat AIMIM team had visited Khambhat town after the violence, he said.
“Action must be taken against the guilty. But there should not be a media trial, for it is shown that stones were hurled by the people of the minority community. Show if there is concrete evidence. Else, there should not be a media trial,” he said.
Owaisi was in Gujarat to take stock of the state unit of the party’s preparedness for the upcoming assembly polls to be held in December this year.
In March last year, in its debut elections in Gujarat, AIMIM won 17 seats in three municipalities where elections were held. Of the total 24 candidates fielded by the party in the three municipalities of Modasa, Godhra and Bharuch, 17 candidates won.
On Wednesday, the Anand police said that the communal violence that broke out in Khambhat during Ram Navami processions, in which one person had died, was a pre-planned conspiracy.
The violence was triggered by a small group of people as part of a conspiracy to achieve dominance of a particular community in Khambhat by sabotaging the procession taken out by another community.
“The people behind the Khambhat violence were influenced by social media messages and instigating videos. The Hindu community takes out processions and celebrates Ram Navami. With an aim to stop these celebrations and to increase the dominance of the Muslim community in the area, the procession was attacked,” the Anand police officials said in a statement. The miscreants wanted to ensure that the Ram Navami procession was not taken out in future and wanted to create an atmosphere of fear in the city, it said.
