By PTI
AHMEDABAD: AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday alleged that the men whom the Gujarat police have booked for allegedly attacking a Ram Navami procession in Khambhat town were innocent as they were performing namaz when the incident took place.
Speaking on the communal clashes in Himmatnagar and Khambhat towns that took place following altercations during Ram Navami processions on March 10, Owaisi said the BJP-led state government failed to maintain law and order.
“A Gujarat AIMIM (All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen) team had visited Khambhat town after the violence. They learnt that those who were booked by the police were busy offering namaz when the incident took place. And it was the state government’s responsibility to see that the procession passes off peacefully,” Owaisi told reporters here.
“If you go through the past inquiry reports on such incidents, it was written that violence will take place if the state wants it and violence will never take place if the state does not. Hence, it was the state government that failed to establish law and order,” the Hyderabad MP said.
Owaisi was in Gujarat to take stock of the state unit of the party’s preparedness for the upcoming Assembly polls to be held in December this year. “I am of the opinion that action must be taken against the guilty. But there should not be a media trial, because it is shown that stones were hurled by the people of the minority community. Show it if there is concrete evidence. Otherwise, a media trial must not happen,” he added.
On Wednesday, police in Anand district had said that communal violence in Khambhat town on Ram Navami was a “pre-planned conspiracy” hatched by a “sleeper module” to achieve the dominance of Muslim community in the town.
Police have already arrested 11 persons for their alleged involvement in hatching the conspiracy of the violence.
Anand district SP Ajit Rajian had said that the perpetrators had planned to attack the procession and spread violence with the aim to teach the members of Hindu community a lesson to not take out any such procession in the future.
A senior citizen was killed and another injured in the violence which broke out after a Ram Navami procession came under attack on Sunday. On the same day, similar clashes erupted in Himmatnagar town of Sabarkantha district.
