A joint fact-finding team of non-Congress opposition parties in Madhya Pradesh alleged political conspiracy behind the Khargone communal riots, and demanded action against those who took out the Ram Navami procession without permission, carrying arms. They said the ‘one-sided’ action by the administration, should be stopped.
The fact-finding team members and other office bearers of the opposition parties, who addressed a press conference in Bhopal on Wednesday, also demanded CBI probe into the death of Idris Khan alias Saddam, whose body was handed over to his family eight days after his death on the intervening night of April 10-11.
The team said there are many unanswered questions regarding the death, and the role of police, especially registering of murder case only four days after the death although there are witnesses to attack on Idris and the wounds are tell-tale. They also pointed out the delay in informing the family about death.
The members alleged that the violence was deliberately stirred and the reason was political. They said there are 10 assembly seats in Khargone and Barwani (the other district that saw riots on Ram Navami). If the results of past four assembly polls are analysed, it could be seen that in 2003, 2008 and 2013, the BJP won six to seven of these 10 seats. However, in 2018, the BJP lost nine of the 10 seats (and also lost the polls with a slim margin). “It is this defeat that the BJP is not able to digest and therefore it is conspiring to cause communal polarisation to win the (2023) polls,” they said in a joint statement.
The representatives claimed that the first Ram Navami procession in Khargone had passed peacefully. However, a BJP leader instigated a crowd to collect and insisted on taking the procession through narrow lanes, raising inflammatory slogans and playing provocative songs in front of the mosque, leading to a tense situation.
They said despite having intelligence input that communal tension might arise during Ram Navami, the administration and the police did not make adequate preventive and security arrangements. They alleged that the registration or FIR and demolition of properties seemed quite biased against one particular community and action was initiated in localities far away from riot sites and on people who were not present on the ground (one accused was in hospital, another in Karnataka) during the riots.
The representatives demanded action against the persons who were carrying sharp weapons and guns during the procession staged without permission, and stopping of ‘one-way action’. They demanded compensation for the people whose properties were demolished without due legal process or permission of collector, and criminal case registered against those involved in this action. All religious places should be reopened, they said.
Alleging that Home Minister Narottam Mishra made instigating statements against a community, they demanded his resignation as well.
The joint fact-finding team that visited Khargone on April 25 and talked to the affected people as well as common citizens in the town, included state secretary of CPI-M Jaswinder Singh, senior office bearer Kailash Limbodia, Indore secretary of CPI-M C.L. Sarawat, Indore secretary of CPI Rudrapal Yadav and state secretary of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Swarup Nayak.
Apart from Singh and Nayak of the fact-finding team, state secretariat member of CPI, Shailendra Kumar Shaili, state president of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Raju Bhatnagar, state general secretary of Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP) Ajay Shrivastava, state general secretary of Samanata Dal Pradeep Kushwaha and Devendra Singh Chouhan of CPI (ML) were present at the press conference.
