Curfew, uneasy calm in Muzaffarnagar
11 Sep 2013 12:00 AM GMT
Addressing media persons in Lucknow on Tuesday, state home secretary Kamal Saxena said 366 people have so far been arrested in the troubled districts including Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Shamli, Hapur and Meerut. Many of the affected people have been shifted toÂ
safer places.
Meanwhile, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said in Lucknow that the challenge was to bring back people to their homes as many had fled the riot-hit villages. The toll in the communal strife across the districts of Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Meerut, Baghpat and Saharanpur rose to 38 with 35 cases reported from Muzaffarnagar alone. Official sources said that 67 persons were injured in Muzaffarnagar, while eight got injured in Saharanpur and seven others in Baghpat.
The chief minister on Tuesday said the security of those persons who had fled from the villages would be the top priority of his government. He expressed confidence that no major incident would now take place due to proper deployment of security personnel and presence of seasoned officials. He reiterated propagators of the communal violence would not be spared while issuing an appeal to the people to maintain calm.
The other sensitive districts like Aligarh, Meerut, Bareilly, Agra, Moradabad, Sambhal and Rampur are also put on the high alert in view of Muzaffarnagar riots. The army, para-military and the police continued to carry out flag marches in order to instill sense of confidence among the citizens.Â
Centre puts Madhya Pradesh on alert
Mohit Sharma
The Centre has issued advisory to Madhya Pradesh to take precautionary measures against possible communal riots. Sources in the ministry of home affairs (MHA) said the advisory was forwarded on Sunday. 'Intelligence agencies smell a possibility of similar riots in Madhya Pradesh, especially in Indore, where communal tensions had arisen a fortnight ago,' a MHA source said. On 20 August, nearly 35 people including senior police officials had sustained injuries during communal tension in Indore's Chandan Nagar area. 'This locality - Chandan Nagar – has been under stress for past few days and we strongly suspect that unscrupulous elements are trying to polarize people here. We have warned the state government to remain vigilant and not let the situation take ugly turn as it did in UP despite prior warning,' the source added. Apart from Indore, other localities which have been specified in the advisory are Dhar, Ratlam, Ujjain, MahidpurÂ
and Burhanpur.
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