By Faisal Fareed, TwoCircles.net,
Moradabad: The city of brasswork reeled under curfew on Wednesday. Though police claimed that no fresh violence was reported, the city is far from normal. An uneasy calm prevailed in Moradabad with no relaxation in curfew throughout the day. The curfew was clamped Tuesday night.
The violence had made life difficult for the rozedars as life without basic facilities as bread and milk and inability to offer namaz at masjids and iftars within four walls of the house took away the sheen of Ramdan.
On Wednesday, state government air-dashed Special Director General (crime, law & order), Brij Lal, to supervise the operations and maintain peace. Police claimed that so far over 50 persons were arrested in connection with the violence. Brij Lal later told newsmen that heavy police force is patrolling in the trouble prone areas and if conditions remained peaceful then they will decide to give relaxation in the curfew on Thursday.
The violence began after an incident on Sunday. Kanwariyas vitiated the atmosphere by insisting to take out procession from Kathghar area dominated by Muslims on Sunday. In the past the Kanwariyas had never taken that root. The matter was subsided with the intervention of community elders. However, after the Hindus held a meeting on Tuesday, violence was unleashed in an organised manner. After the meeting, Hindu youths rushed to the road and started stone pelting on minority establishments including mosques. Due to negligence of the local police officers who had not deployed adequate force, both the parties later freely hurled abuses which later resulted into stone pelting. Clash between the two groups ensued in which miscreants also opened fire due to which three persons received bullet injuries while over four dozen of others were injured during the stone pelting and rushed to Sai Hospital from where one of them was referred for New Delhi.
Reports reaching state capital Lucknow said that when senior officers rushed to defuse the situation at Khatghar and Majhola, the violence further spread in the entire city areas which included Mugalpura, Nagphani, Gulsahid and Kotwali areas. Finding themselves hapless to control the unruly mobs which so far torched several houses and business establishments, senior officers immediately summoned police forces from neighbouring districts while half a dozen companies of PAC were also rushed to the trouble prone areas. After fighting pitch battle for more than six hours the situation was brought under control. However, the district authorities had to impose curfew on Tuesday night which continued throughout Wednesday. Heavy police force is still patrolling in the area and both SDG, Brij Lal and ADG (NCR) Zone, KL Meena were camping in the area to maintain peace.
At Lucknow, the Moradabad incident was also raised during the zero hour in the ongoing assembly session. Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan alleged that Muslims were targeted and were arrested by the police. He demanded an end to this attitude and sending an all party delegation to the trouble areas. However, the demand was turned down by the parliamentary affairs minister Lalji Verma who claimed that heavy police force has been deployed and things are under control. He claimed that only 16 shops were torched, three motorcycles consigned to flames and 50 people were injured.