By IANS
New Delhi : The Election Commission Saturday extended by over eight hours its 11 a.m. deadline for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to reply to its notice for his alleged speech inciting communal passions while referring to the 2005 staged killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh.
An official spokesperson of the poll panel told IANS that the commission extended the deadline after Modi’s representative informed it that the reply was being drafted and would take some hours.
At this, the commission asked him to submit the reply by late evening, the spokesperson said.
The Gujarat chief minister faces the poll panel’s notice for violation of the Model Code of Conduct by allegedly making a controversial statement at Mangrol in south Gujarat Dec 4 about the extra-judicial killing of Ujjain resident Sheikh in November 2005.
Addressing an election rally, Modi had asked the crowd what should be done to people like Sheikh, who he said had piled up arms and ammunition for inciting violence and terrorism.
At this the crowd and responded saying, “Kill him, kill him.”
And Modi, in turn, had retorted, “That’s it. Now hang me if I have done anything wrong.”
The speech has kicked off a political storm, with Modi being accused of aggravating the communal divide for electoral gains. The assembly elections will be held in the state Dec 11 and Dec 16.
Besides the poll panel notice, the chief minister also faces two petitions in the Supreme Court for a probe into his alleged complicity in the killings of Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi and family friend Tulsiram Prajapati.
Meanwhile, a US-based rights group – Human Rights Watch – has asked the central government to probe Modi’s role in the extra-judicial killings by the state police.
“Modi’s remarks send a green light to the police that executing terrorism suspects is fine with his administration. The government in Delhi should immediately investigate this seeming incitement to violence,” Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said.