"Will Find Culprits From The Depths Of Hell": Amit Shah On Delhi Violence

Union home minister Amit Shah gave an account of the people arrested for last month's violence in Delhi, in which more than 50 people died. "We will find the people who are in hiding, we will find them from the depths of hell," he told Rajya Sabha in response to the discussion on the violence. Forty-plus teams have been formed to track down the culprits who have been identified, he added.

The government, Mr Shah said, wants to assure people that those who conspired for riots, irrespective of religion and party, won't be spared. "They will be investigated under a scientific method and we will treat this matter with grave importance," he said.

Mr Shah said he called the riots a conspiracy as it was funded with money from across the country and abroad.

"I won't take the name of the organisation, but on (February) 24th, we got to know that money came from India and abroad and distributed in Delhi and the riots happened," Mr Shah told Rajya Sabha.

The government, he said, has asked the Lieutenant-Governor of Delhi to appoint a judge to probe this. "People should believe that the Modi government is doing everything for speedy investigation, he added.

The violence -- which started in northeast Delhi's Jaffrabad as a clash between those protesting between the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and those supporting it -- has cost more than 50 lives, more than 200 people have been injured.

The Congress, which for days have been demanding a discussion on the issue in parliament, alleged that the violence continued for days because of the inaction by the Delhi Police. The police, it claimed,  was taking orders from the Union home ministry, to which it reports.

Without naming the Congress, Amit Shah said, "People should not point fingers at me or my party or ideology (as) 76 per cent riots took place during the Congress rule".

The BJP, he said, was not in power in 1967, 1969, 1970, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1985, when riots took place. "We were not in power in 1989 in Delhi, in 1990 at Hyderabad, at 1990 in Aligarh, 92 in Kanpur, at Bhopal in 92, Mumbai in 93. Only during Gujarat  riots we were in power... 76% of the deaths in riots took place Congress rule," he added.