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British MPs to visit Gujarat, Kashmir

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON JULY 21. A group of British Labour Party MPs is to visit Gujarat to study, first-hand, the situation in the state after the recent communal violence. The eight-member delegation, to be led by the Labour MP, Terry Rooney, will also visit Kashmir where Assembly elections are due in October.

Mr. Rooney told The Hindu that the MPs would spend three days each in Gujarat and Kashmir and talk to the ordinary people to find out "what is going on there". He accused the Indian Government of being "in denial" of the enormity of the "killings" in Gujarat, and sharply disagreed with the official Indian position that it was a "domestic" issue. What happened in Gujarat, he said, was a manifestation of "state terrorism".

The MPs are expected to convey to Indian leaders the concerns of Britain's Muslim community over the events in Gujarat, particularly the allegations of rape and humiliation of women, and press for a crackdown on groups alleged to be behind the violence.

Mr. Rooney told a meeting of Gujarati Muslims in Bradford on Saturday that he would also take up their concerns with the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who has already offered full support to their campaign to bring to justice those responsible for the killings of two British citizens in Gujarat.

Another Labour MP, Marsha Singh, drew a parallel with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots triggered by Indira Gandhi's assassination and said that many of those behind them had yet to be punished. He said such inaction encouraged other fascist groups to take law into their own hands. Lord Nazir Ahmed called for a ban on the activities of organisations such as the World Hindu Council which have been accused of funding the groups allegedly involved in the Gujarat "massacre". It was "appalling", he said, that the British Government had not acted against them.

The meeting, organised by the Federation of Gujarati Indian Muslim Organisations, called for imposition of Central rule in Gujarat and opposed elections in the State until full normality was restored. "There are hundreds of people who have been disenfranchised and elections should not be held until they are enfranchised again and are in a position to vote freely,'' said Mr. Zafar Sareshwala of the Federation.

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