Riot-accused are 'guests of honour' at Narendra Modi, Mulayam Singh rallies

Three men accused of inciting deadly riots in Uttar Pradesh were treated as guests of honour today at election rallies in the western part of the state, where nearly 60 people were killed in communal violence in Muzzaffarnagar three months ago. BJP legislators Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana were garlanded and felicitated by the party's Uttar Pradesh leaders at Narendra Modi's rally in Agra. Both men spent over a month in jail for instigating that Hindu-Muslim violence. In Bareilly, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the chief of the state's ruling Samajwadi Party, and his Chief Minister son Akhilesh Yadav addressed a rally the party says was its grandest ever. The Yadavs shared the stage with a controversial Sunni cleric named Tauqeer Raza Khan. In 2010, he was arrested by the government then headed by Mayawati for fueling riots in Bareilly, which led to two months of curfew in the city. He was also instrumental in a fatwa issued against Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen in 2007.