BJP's Sangeet Som, MLA from Sardhana in Meerut district
A court has issued warrants against nine politicians accused of inciting communal clashes in Muzzafarnagar, where nearly 50 people were killed and 40,000 forced into refugee camps earlier this month.
At least five of those leaders attended the UP assembly today. Among them was BJP MLA Sangeet Som, who has been charged with circulating a fake video online that fueled the riots. He allegedly said it showed the lynching of two Hindu boys in the region, though the video was two years old and from Pakistan.
"I have been in my constituency (Sardana), I don't know where the police have been searching for me. Let them arrest me if they have evidence," Mr Som told NDTV.
(Looking for me? Here I am: BJP leader wanted for Muzaffarnagar riots)Those who could now be arrested also include: Kadir Rana, Jameel Ahmed and Noor Salim Rana of the BSP, Saedduzzaman of the Congress and Bhartendra Singh of the BJP.
(Where is Kadir Rana, BSP leader wanted for Muzaffarnagar riots?)"We are going to act against all the politicians who have been charged. We have enough evidence," said Praveen Kumar, the Senior Superintendent of Police, Muzaffarnagar,.
The torrent of Hindu-Muslim violence that plundered this part of Western UP began on August 27 with the deaths of three young men in the village of Kawal- first, two Hindu Jat boys murdered a Muslim who they accused of stalking their sister; an hour later, the brothers were lynched by a mob of Muslims.
The police and local administration officials called a ban on public meetings. In theory. Politicians from across parties delivered calls-to-action, some addressing Hindu crowds, others focusing on Muslims.
One incendiary meeting was addressed by leaders of the Congress and BSP on August 30 after Friday prayers.
A week later, on September 7, politicians from the BJP took centrestage at an enormous meeting of thousands of Jat farmers, seeking justice for the Hindu boys who had been lynched in Kawal. The swords and guns being brandished in the audience didn't deter Hukum Singh, BJP leader, from propounding that atrocities against Hindus in the areas were being ignored. He says his speech was not incendiary.
As the farmers left the meeting, packed into tractors and bullock carts, they were attacked. Then came retaliatory killings. The army was called in for the first time in over a decade to enforce law and order in UP; soldiers left Muzaffarnagar as recently as Tuesday.