UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav speaks to the media after visiting Muzaffarnagar
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav visited Muzaffarnagar yesterday, a week after the communal violence started there which has claimed at least 48 lives and displaced more than 40,000 people. He was shown black flags at a village. His government has faced flak over a series of riots in the state during his 18-month tenure so far.
Here are the 10 latest developments:
After a visit to the violence-hit villages, Mr Yadav yesterday said, "The rioters will not be spared, no matter what their clout is. We will book them under National Security Act."
Speaking to NDTV, the young Chief Minister said, "Everyone is aware of the political forces behind clashes... The social fabric was tampered with."
The young Chief Minister has promised government jobs to the families of those killed in the riots which started on September 7. Mr Yadav also said his government will re-build the homes that have been burnt down in the riots.
The 40-year-old Chief Minister, who has been severely criticised for failing to maintain law and order in the state, visited Kawwal first, the worst-hit Muslim-dominated village during the riots. There he met Salim, father of Shahnawaz, who was killed by Jat men from the neighbouring Malikpura village on August 27 for allegedly harassing women. (Watch: The making of a riot)
Waving black flags, the Kawwal villagers shouted slogans against the "failure" of the administration in controlling the violence. The villagers also alleged that the Chief Minister did not receive a memorandum from them and only met the 'outsiders'. Muzaffarnagar Senior Superintendent of Police Subhash Dubey has been suspended for failing to control the violence.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will also visit Muzaffarnagar today. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi will also accompany him.
The political fallout of the violence has begun to show. Sompal Shastri, former union minister and Samajwadi Party candidate from Baghpat, has refused to contest the 2014 elections, saying he has lost the moral right to do so. Mr Shastri has defeated Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh in the past.
A report by Uttar Pradesh Governor BL Joshi, sent to the Centre, has blamed the Akhilesh government for failing to check the riots, sources have said.
But the Chief Minister's father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, has refuted all charges against the state government. The Samajwadi Party chief has shifted the blame to the locals, saying mistrust between communities was the reason for the deadly violence in Muzaffarnagar and elsewhere.
Four BJP state legislators, one from the Congress and two from the regional Bharatiya Kisan Union have been booked for stirring communal hatred largely through inflammatory speeches made at the mahapanchayat. Bharatendra Singh, one of the BJP MLAs, was on Saturday traced to his mother's house in Dehradun. The police, though, failed to arrest him after it couldn't produce an arrest warrant.
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