The UP Government, battling charges of being partisan in rehabilitating victims of Muzaffarnagar riots, told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that Muslims were at the receiving end in the riots as 50 out of 65 casualties were from that community.
Arguing for the State, senior advocate UU lalit, who replaced Rajiv Dhavan, said that it was wrong to allege bias against the State Government as the ground situation showed how majority among the victims belonged to one community.
“50 deaths were from that (Muslim) community. They are the ones who faced the brunt of violence,” lalit said, explaining the circumstances in which the government issued the first order of October 26, 2013 granting relief and rehabilitation to Muslims.
“It is not that somebody in the Government has done it with any vicious intent. Just that they were in majority, our effort was to ensure relief was made available to victims.” Even among the list of 80 persons critically injured, the state claimed that majority belonged to Muslim community.
The bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justices Ranjana Desai and Ranjan Gogoi were curious to know whether the Government had succeeded to build confidence among the minorities who were housed in relief camps to return to the villages. lalit pointed out that following the riots that broke on September 7 last year, persons from nine villages vacated and shifted to localities where their community was in majority.
As a result more than 51 relief camps with 58000 persons were set up in Muzaffarnagar and over 20 camps cropped up in Shamli. As on February 11, not a single camp remains in Muzaffarnagar while in Shamli and surrounding areas, six camps still operate with roughly 3800 persons, belonging mostly from the minority community.
The Court asked UP counsel, “They have not gone back yet. This shows they have no confidence yet.” lalit replied that the state could not force persons to return to their villages as it was voluntary. Besides compensation given for loss of life and property, the State gave an additional Rs 5 lakh compensation to permanently relocate families not willing to return, he added.