Toeing the lines of the Shivpal Singh Yadav committee report of the State government, the probe report of the Meerut Commissioner has also blamed the local BJP MP Raghav lakhanpal and district authorities for the Saharanpur riots in which three people were killed and hundreds of shops gutted in the violence which started on July 25.
While UP PWD minister Shivpal Singh Yadav Committee submitted the report on August 14, Meerut Commissioner Bhupendra Singh gave his report to the state government here on Tuesday. Government officials said action would be taken against the guilty people as per the recommendations made in both the reports. But it is unlikely that the government would move further in this direction due to the coming assembly by-elections to Saharanpur Sadar seat slated forSeptember 13.
According to sources, the 92-page report has indicted the district administration and local intelligence units for failure to assess the sensitivity and simmering tension on the ground. The Commissioner report says that Mr lakhanpal and some other leaders didn’t pay attention to local officers’ request for not moving around in riot hit areas.’’The BJP MP continued to move in his vehicle even after being warned by the authorities. Such movements provoked tension,’’ the report said. The Meerut Commissioner report said the district officials were clearly responsible for not being able to defuse the tension in time, thus preventing riots from breaking out. But post-riots, however, police and administrative officials were quick to response, forces were mobilised quickly and adequate efforts initiated to bring the situation under control at the earliest, the report said.
The Commissioner said role of some politicians — people’s representatives — were under the scanner as they instigated the violence. The report also give details of the role played by Moharram Ali alias Pappu, the key accused of riots and arrested under National Security Act(NSA).
Earlier the five-member Shivpal Singh Yadav Committee had also recommended action against the guilty people who had instigated violence in Saharanpur and questioned the role of BJP’s MP Raghav lakhanpal and former Councillor Moharram Ali Pappu.
The four-page report signed by all the five members of the committee was submitted to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on August 14. Clashes between two minority communities over a land dispute in Saharanpur had left three people dead and 34 injured. As many as 165 shops and handcarts and 42 vehicles were set ablaze in the violence. More than 110 people including some Samajwadi Party and Congress leaders were booked for the violence. As per the findings of the report of the Shivpal Singh Yadav Committee, the local administration and police failed to act in time to prevent riot from erupting, besides, connivance of some of the low level officers on ground can not be ruled out.
The report further said Moharram Ali Pappu and Mr lakhanpal were the key persons who flared the passions in the community but surprisingly the report did not mention the name of Congress leader Imran Masood against whom an FIR has been registered in the violence. The probe members disclosed that during their investigation they came to know that Mr lakhanpal was reported to have been moving around in a convoy of 7-8 cars inciting rioters. lakhanpal by all measures tried to aggravate the situation. The committee in its recommendations has suggested release of innocent people lodged in the jail and those who are guilty should be booked. They also said in some cases, the matter should be re-examined as innocent should get justice. The team members claimed they had visited the disputed spot in Saharanpur, met all the sides — Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs — separately. Meetings with officials were also held. The report has been prepared after exhaustive inputs from various sides involved.
However, Mr lakhanpal has denied about his involvement in the riots and alleged that the SP leaders were trying to implicate him for political reasons. ‘’I had saved several shops being gutted and even the district authorities appreciated my efforts,’’ he said. The state government has already transferred District Magistrate Sandhya Tiwari and the City Magistrate of Saharanpur recently but SSP Rajesh Pandey is yet to be shunted out. The committee headed by PWD Minister Shivpal Yadav visited Saharanpur and went through all the aspects, visiting the spot of the dispute and meeting people of both the sections. The other members of the committee are— Technical Education Minister, Shivakant Ojha, Minister of State for Rural Development, Arvind Singh Gope, state minister Ashu Malik and SP’s District President, Moradabad, Haji Ikram Qureshi.