The Hindu : Abu Salem sympathisers behind Vadodara riots: Modi

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 22, 2002

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Abu Salem sympathisers behind Vadodara riots: Modi

By Manas Dasgupta

UNNAI (South Gujarat) Sept. 21. The Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, who began the third leg of his "gaurav rath yatra" today sought to link the violence in Vadodara directly with the arrest of the international gangster, Abu Salem, in Lisbon.

At least four persons were killed and a dozen injured in police firing, stabbing and stone-throwing in Vadodara yesterday after a clash between the two communities over Ganesh idol immersion procession in the minority-dominated Fatehpura locality. The incidents had their repercussions in Ahmedabad, Surat, Bhavnagar and some other small towns from where incidents of stabbing were reported late last night.

The situation, however, was officially described "peaceful but tense" in Vadodara and other parts of the State with no untoward incidents reported since last night. The curfew imposed in Fatehpura locality in Vadodara last night, was lifted today. While official sources said the Vadodara incidents were sparked off when a group of Muslims came out of a mosque after Friday prayers while a Ganesh idol immersion procession was passing by. Mr. Modi saw in it the hands of the "sympathisers" of Abu Salem who was wanted in connection with the Mumbai serial bomb blast.

Without naming any community, however, Mr. Modi said "some people" were "shocked" at the arrest of the international gangster and wanted to disrupt communal unity and amity. "Why should these people feel sympathy for the arrest by the Portuguese Government of a notorious criminal and try to take its revenge in Vadodara," he asked.

Mr. Modi asked the minorities in the State and in other parts of the country to condemn the Vadodara incidents to "demonstrate that they were not with the sympathisers of the criminals". Pointing out that the Congress too had failed to condemn the incidents in Vadodara, he indirectly linked Congressmen with those who instigated the riots.

The Vadodara police commissioner, Deen Dayal Tuteja, said police was also inquiring on the same lines to find any link between yesterday's violence and Abu Salem's arrest.

But even before the rath yatra took off from the tribal pilgrim centre of Unnai in south Gujarat, the Union Textile Minister and prominent BJP leader, Kashiram Rana, fired a salvo, pointing out that the "gaurav rath yatra" was getting "tainted" because of the association with it of some leaders whose images were not very clean.

Naming a couple of south Gujarat leaders, who he said had a tainted image, Mr. Rana demanded their removal from the committee responsible for organising the rath yatra.

He also sprang a surprise by toeing the line of another Modi-baiter, the former Chief Minister, Keshubhai Patel, by repeating that Mr. Modi would not be an automatic choice for the chief ministership if the BJP was voted back to power in the State.

His utterances came even after the party's State unit president, Rajendrasinh Rana, made it clear that Mr. Modi would continue as the Chief Minister in the event of the party retaining power. Mr. Rana, who was present on the dais at the flagging off ceremony, enumerated the achievements of the BJP Government in the State but carefully refrained from giving any credit to Mr. Modi who has virtually hijacked the entire party.

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