Muzaffarnagar riots: Uma Bharti warns of more tension if BJP leaders are arrested

Lucknow: BJP leader Uma Bharti today warned of "more tension" in Uttar Pradesh if politicians from her party are arrested for instigating the riots that tore through Muzaffarnagar earlier this month, leaving nearly 50 people dead and forcing 40,000 people into refugee camps.

"Our MLAs (state legislators) will not oppose their arrest, but the government is responsible for what will follow. I am warning them," she said.

Uma Bharti said that Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had promised that an inquiry would be conducted before any politicians were arrested.

She issued her threat outside the state assembly in Lucknow while flanking the BJP's Sangeet Som, one of the politicians against whom a warrant has been issued by a local court.

Outside the state legislature, BJP supporters encircled Mr Som, preventing the police from being able to arrest him.

He has admitted that his office circulated a fake video that claimed to show the lynching of two Hindu Jat boys; he said that the video had been uploaded by the ruling Samajwadi party originally.

The police says the footage is two years old and from Pakistan, and inflammed the tension that resulted in the worst communal riots in the state in over a decade.

The group of politicians accused of delivering incendiary speeches at different meetings in Muzaffarnagar include Sangeet Som and Bhartendra Singh of the BJP; Qadir Rana, Noor Saleem and Maulana Jameel of the  BSP; and Congress leader Saeeduzaman.

The riots have triggered speculation that parties are seeking to polarise the politically pivotal state along religious lines ahead of general elections due next year.

News channel Headlines Today aired a sting where a police officer was caught saying that senior minister, Azam Khan allegedly told the police to go slow on controlling the riots.

Mr Khan has denied the allegation, saying he is prepared to face the "harshest of punishment if proven guilty".