By TCN Staff Reporter,
New Delhi: Four days after communal riot broke out in Moradabad, the western Uttar Pradesh town continues to be tense with recurring incidents of violence, disturbing communal harmony of the city.
Since the night of August 7, when violence erupted after a controversy started by Kawadias (Hindu pilgrims) over their travel route passing by a Muslim populated area, the city continues to be under the spell of curfew.
Some times, even when it seems that the situation is getting back to normalcy, there happen incidents of gun firing and stone pelting, breaking the possibility of long-lasting peace in the city. Yesterday, when the city police gave relaxation of seven hours, which went without any violence, two incidents of violence and firing were reported.
Stone pelting and two gun shots occurred between two groups at Jayantipur late last night. Jayantipur is a communally sensitive area of the city. Police raided several houses and took fourteen people into custody in order to investigate the latest attempt to disturb the peace and communal harmony of the city. Jayantipur has a mixed population with Hindus outnumbering Muslims. It has a temple and a mosque, Asha Masjid in the same lane.
Another incident of violence was reported today at Peetal basti under Katghar police station between Hindus and Muslims. There was stone pelting and firing between dalit groups and Muslims group at Peetal Basti after which police has been interrogated several individuals related to the incident.
On Saturday curfew was imposed in all the communally sensitive areas including Mughalpura, Naagphani, Manjhola, Jayantipur and Kotwali. In order to experiment with the idea of peace police relaxed curfew for eight hours (from 10 am to 6 pm) which went without any incidents of violence.
“Barring few incidents of small violence the city remains largely calm and peaceful. Things are getting back to normalcy and we are trying our best to prevent every attempt to disturb the communal amity of the city,” said NK Shrivastava, DIG Moradabad to TwoCircles.net over phone.
Even though the district administration considers curfew to be a way to control violence but several Muslims in the city consider it as some thing which spoils the spirit of Ramadan, the holy month which started last week.
“There was hardly any big incident of violence in the city. This kind of intense curfew, which is going on presently in the city, is not required to control violence. Simple policing also can prevent them. If you look at it from a religious perspective, the curfew is actually a roadblock in several activity which one does in Ramadan,” said Murtaza Iqbal, a local journalist told TwoCircles.net over phone.