By India Tomorrow News,
New Delhi, 26 Dec 2013: Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has landed in trouble by saying no riot victims are in relief camps in Muzaffarnagar and those who are staying there are political activists of Congress and BJP. While Muslim leaders are condemning Yadav for the statement, a Delhi-based activist on Thursday filed a petition with the National Commission for Minorities seeking action against him.
Petitioner Shehzad Poonawall has urged the minority panel to take immediate action against Mulayam for his “completely false, baseless and offensive remarks…against the riot victims of Muzaffarnagar.”
At an event organised at the Samajwadi Party office in Lucknow to mark the late prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh’s birth anniversary on 23 Dec 2013, Mulayam Singh Yadav had said: “There are no riot victims at all in the (Muzaffarnagar relief) camps. There is not even one. You can check. These are people who are conspirators. BJP and Congress have conspired. They have asked people to stay there at night and sit on dharnas. This is conspiracy of the people there…They (riot victims) have all gone. Congress and BJP are provoking them.”
Young law graduate and political activist Poonawalla has provided the NCM with a DVD and CD containing video recordings of the said statement of Mulayam Singh.
He has also provided the NCM with pictures and videos from the relief camps along with recorded testimonies in the DVD and CD that proves beyond doubt that Mulayam Singh Yadav is “peddling a blatant lie by falsely alleging that the inhabitants of these relief camps are not victims but conspirators of political outfits.”
“The testimonies prove that the inhabitants in these camps, who have lost their homes, lands, livelihoods and loved one’s in the riots in Muzaffarnagar, have not been afforded compensation or justice. In several cases, the victims fear to go back to their villages because of inaction by the Uttar Pradesh police against the perpetrators and because of the fear of reprisal and insult,” said Poonawalla.
Officially the Uttar Pradesh government of Samajwadi Party is also claiming that there are just 4,783 people living in five relief camps in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts.
“This is false. I am providing a list of at least 10 camps housing at least 25,000 victims of which approximately 50% are children between the ages of 0-18years,” said Poonawalla in his petition to the NCM chairperson Wajahat Habibullah.
He has prayed before the NCM to issue a notice to Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Uttar Pradesh government to “clarify its stand on false statement of Mulayam Singh Yadav with respect to the victims and direct them to retract or withdraw this false, baseless and insulting statement at the earliest with immediate effect and issue apology for the same.”
He has also sought a direction to the Uttar Pradesh government to make a fresh and honest assessment of the victims living in all the different camps and of those who have lost their lives due to the cold as the figures provided by the Uttar Pradesh government are false and misleading. The UP government should be directed to provide basic relief material including rations, milk, warm clothes and blankets to every relief camp at the earliest after making the above assessment, Poonawalla demanded.
