Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has refuted all charges against the state government
Amid a raging political blame game, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will travel to riots-torn Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh on September 16. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi may accompany him.
Here are the latest developments:
Two boys have been injured in a fresh incident of firing this morning in Muzaffarnagar's Fugana village, one of the worst-hit in the violence that has claimed at least 40 lives so far.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, whose government has come under fire for its poor handling of the clashes, today said that he "will visit Muzaffarnagar soon". Sources say he could go to the district ahead of the PM's visit on Monday.
The two had spoken earlier this week where the Prime Minister enquired about steps taken by the state government to restore peace in the western UP town following the clashes.
A report by UP Governor BL Joshi, sent to the Centre, has blamed the Akhilesh government for failing to check the riots, sources have said.
But the 40-year-old chief minister's father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, has refuted all charges against the state government. The Samajwadi Party chief today, in fact, shifted the blame to the locals, saying mistrust between communities was the reason for the deadly violence in Muzaffarnagar and elsewhere.
"There was no reason for a dispute... One community does not trust the other... they wanted to take each other's lives... this is most dangerous," said Mr Yadav.
The riots were triggered allegedly after a massive meeting of farmers on Saturday last. The mahapanchayat had been held to demand justice for two Jat brothers who were lynched after they shot a Muslim boy for harassing their sister in the village of Kawal.
The farmers were attacked as they were returning home, triggering an angry backlash and the army was called in. Clashes then broke out in neighbouring villages on Sunday.
Four BJP state legislators, one from the Congress and two from the regional Bharatiya Kisan Union have been booked for stirring communal hatred largely through inflammatory speeches made at the mahapanchayat.
Bharatendra Singh, one of the BJP MLAs, was today traced to his mother's house in Dehradun. The police, though, failed to arrest him after it couldn't produce an arrest warrant. (Read)
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