By TCN News,
Bhopal: Condemning the recent riots at a village in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) has termed it as a sinister design of the Hindutva forces to polarise the society in view of the fast approaching assembly elections in that state, which are due later this year.
Earlier this week, Bihar riots reportedly saw six people dead along with loss of properties.
A Sayeed , SDPI national president, in a statement, charged that with the assembly elections round the corner in Bihar, the communal forces want to polarise the society as usual and target the state and divide Muslims and Hindus. “This is a well known strategy of the saffron brigade as it was witnessed in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In Bihar, this conspiracy should be unwrapped well in advance for the people to see through the evil designs of the perpetrators before the votes are cast for the legislative assembly elections,” the statement said.
Sayeed urged Bihar Chief Minister Jeetan Ram Manjhi that it is not enough to just suspend the police officials for dereliction of their duties in this incident but order a thorough probe into the incident to unmask the conspirators and take strict action against the culprits to prove as a deterrent for others.
He also demanded that ex-gratia relief payment to the aggrieved families should be at least Rs 22-25 lakh to the kin of the dead while adequate compensation be paid at market rate to the families whose houses and vehicles were burnt down to ashes.
At least six people were reportedly burnt alive and around 50 houses and several vehicles were set afire in the Muslim-dominated village at Azizpur village in Muzaffarpur district.
The statement pointed out that Bihar has seen more than 170 incidents of communal clashes since June 2013, when the BJP parted ways with the JD (U) government. “That’s more than 10 incidents a month, nearly thrice the average of three-four when the parties were together,” it said.
Since Jeetan Ram Manjhi replaced Nitish Kumar as Bihar chief minister in May 2014, there have been 38 cases of communal clashes, the release said, adding, during Nitish’s seven-and-a-half years of the NDA government, the state had seen no major communal clash.
The rise in the number of violent incidents suggests that the JD(U) government, which is now running without a cadre-based BJP, is not able to nip such incidents in the bud, unlike earlier, when leaders of the BJP would be asked to engage community leaders at the grassroots level, it said.
The clashes also reflect a growing distrust between the Hindus and Muslims now that they owe loyalty to different political parties.
“Under Nitish, both the Muslims and Hindus had a stake in the NDA government and Hindu organisations did not dare embarrass the government. Now, even if organisations such as the RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal may not be directly involved, their aloofness from engaging communities at the grassroots level has made the task difficult for Manjhi,” the statement added.