National

Orissa has failed to check communal forces: Ravi

Kozhikode: Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Vayalar Ravi said on Monday that the Students Islamic Movement of India and Bajrang Dal were “two sides of the same coin.”

Both were engaged in similar sort of destructive activities. “They should understand [that] ultimately people will identify and isolate them whatever be their claims.”

Condemning the attack on minorities in Orissa, he told journalists here that the State government had “completely failed” to control the communal forces. The government could not properly make use of the paramilitary forces sent by the Centre. “Instead, the government is playing politics and trying to take political mileage out of the turmoil,” he said.

The Congress leader said the country was seeing “another face of Gujarat” in Orissa now.

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