Muzaffarnagar district, the sugar bowl of Uttar Pradesh, is on the brink of losing its identity owing to the incessant communal violence. Sugar cane crops are lying in fields as owners of the mills, who are afraid of communal flare-up, are yet to resume their operations.
Sugar mills situated in Titawi, Mansurpur, Khatauli, Rohana, Budhana, Morana, Shamli and Thana Bhawan areas of the district look like haunted houses. This has also hit the livelihood of mill employees.
The unofficial closure of the mills is also affecting cultivation of Rabi crops as farmers need to plough fields for sowing wheat crops once sugar cane is sent to mills.
Sugar cane farming is the main source of revenue for the region. local farmers get 90 per cent of their income from this. Some of the farmers have yet not cut sugar cane crops as mills are reluctant to announce the date of their opening.
In a few localities, farmers are not visiting fields as they are afraid of attacks by hoodlums. The grim situation has forced some sugar-cane farmers to sell their yields to kolhus for a paltry sum of Rs 190 per quintal, while sugar cane mills pay a minimum of Rs 290 per quintal.
“Our farming is in trouble but the Government and the local administration are not willing to address this pressing issue. We have met senior administrative officials and owners of sugar mills requesting them to start mills immediately but we are yet to get an assurance,” said Ashok Baliyan, president of Peasant Welfare Association.
Meanwhile, locals alleged that the biased approach of the police to protect the minority community was the main cause of the never-ending communal tension. Normalcy would return to the region only after law enforcement agencies act against real culprits who have been let off hook, they added.
Even the police have accepted their lapses while booking locals and have assured them that their names would be removed after proper identification. Police officials informed The Pioneer that the move would help in restoring faith of people in law enforcement agencies
“We have detected galling anomalies in naming people in FIRs. We will identify and remove names of innocents. We have planned to convene meetings with the help of village pradhans to create amiable atmoshphere,” Ashutosh Pandey, Inspector General (IG) of Meerut told The Pioneer.
locals said that the refugees living in relief camps are actively involved in fresh violence and are not returning to their villages in greed
of huge amount of compensation announced by the Government. However, the refugees said that they are not returning out of fear of reprisal as already more than 2,500 acres of their land have been usurped.
“Though we have spent a long time together, because of some people, the gap between the two communities are widening,” said Harveer Arya, a private doctor practicing in Shahpur Kasba whose clinic was vandalised by attackers this week.