Hitting out at state government for giving special treatment to one of the Muzaffarnagar riot accused, the state unit of BJP said that Akhilesh Yadav government has appointed a criminal as a "shaanti doot" who has been entrusted with the job to broker peace in Muzaffarnagar.
''Maulana Nazir, against whom an FIR has been registered at Jansath police station on September 2, 2013 under section 147, 188, 344, 353, 153(A) of the IPC for instigating violence in Muzaffarnagar riots was brought to lucknow by a special aircraft of the UP government along with other maulanas for peace talks,'' BJP state president laxmikant Bajpai told reporters here on Monday.
He said incidentally under the same section BJP law makers have been arrested. "This is strange working of Government. A person charged with criminal offence is sent to jail while another facing similar charges is made shaanti doot (peace messenger)," Bajpai said.
''The BJP charges of Government being partisan towards BJP have been proved. While an accused like Maulana Nazir has been made the Shanti Doot of the government and other accused Muslim leaders -- Kadir Rana of BSP and Congress leader Saidurzama were yet to be arrested while government had invoked NSA against two BJP MlAs Sangeet Singh Som and Suresh Rana,'' he said adding that the name of SP leader Rashid Siddiqui who had also given inflammatory speech does not figure in the FIR.
''NSA has been invoked against 19 people but surprisingly 17 of them are against Hindus and just two are Muslims,'' he said. He also accused Congress vice- president Rahul Gandhi of visiting Muzaffarnagar along with one of the accused in the riots identified as Badal.
He also accused both the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of conniving with the SP in appeasing the Muslims and supporting the government on its one-sided action against the majority community.
Dr Bajpai said that it was unfortunate that the government was yet to convene an all-party meeting for communal harmony in the state and in the districts. It was only doing politics against the majority community.
''BSP leader Swami Prasad Maurya had moved the proposal in the UP assembly to set up a House committee on the sting operation exposing the involvement of senior UP Minister Md Azam Khan on the direction of the government,'' he said.
The BJP leader said that government should have asked the Press Council of India (PCI) to probe into the sting if they were really innocent.