New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government has tabled in the assembly a judicial commission report on the Moradabad riots of 1980-81, claiming that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the local government could not be held responsible at all.
The report claimed that the violence which killed at least 83 people and led to injuries in 112 others was “pre-planned” by local Muslim leaders, reports on various news outlets have said. “Common Muslims” were not responsible for the violence, it said, according to Indian Express.
The Moradabad riots began on the day of Eid-ul-Fitr, August 13, in the Uttar Pradesh city in 1980 and lasted until January 1981. The violence spread to Aligarh, Bareilly and Allahabad (now named Prayagraj). It was considered then the first big communal clash in Uttar Pradesh since Independence.
Hindustan Times has reported that no government has made the report submitted by a one-man inquiry commission led by former Allahabad high court judge Justice M.P. Saxena in 1983 public.
The 458-page report was tabled by the Adityanath government in the state legislative assembly on August 8, Tuesday.
“No government officer, employee or Hindu was responsible for fomenting trouble at Eidgah or other places. The RSS or the BJP nowhere came on the front in these riots. Even common Muslims were not responsible for violence. This was a handiwork of Muslim League led by Shamim Ahmad and Hamid Hussain alias Ajji and their supporters. The riots were pre-planned,” the report said, according to HT.
The report blames the political ambitions of Dr Shamim Ahmed Khan, who revived the Indian Union Muslim League in Uttar Pradesh.
The report, according to Express, pins the beginnings of the violence to rumours being spread about pigs being set loose among those offering namaz at the Eidgah in Moradabad. Word also went around that Muslims, including children, were being killed. This incited violence and counter-violence among religious communities.
The report also said that even though most were killed in stampedes, the sentiment spreading on the ground was that people were being killed by members of other communities.