It would be worth mentioning here that more than 70 persons were killed in Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013 between August 29 and September 9 thousands were rendered homeless as villagers were not willing to go back to homes fearing attacks.

Akhilesh Yadav had set up Justice Vishnu Sahai commission on September 9, 2013 to look into the causes of riots and fix responsibility on culprits.

The commission presented the report of 700 pages, which looked into the working of 40 officials in Muzaffarnagar and other districts.

The commission has only blamed the then home secretary Mr RM Srivastav, the then DM of Muzaffarnagar Kaushal Raj Sharma, SSP Subash Chandra Dube and CO Jansath Jagatram Joshi and LIU officials for not giving correct report on those who participated in Mahapanchayat.

The commission concluded that the main reason for riots were transfers of Muzaffarnagar DM Surendra Singh and SSP Manjil Saini, which antagonized a large section of Hindu community especially the Jats, and the manner in which the 14 accused persons involved in murder of Sachin and Gaurav were released from thana.

The message went that the state government was taking side of a particular community.

Since there was no mention about any minister or legislator of ruling party or any comment on the working of the government the commission gave clean chit to Akhilesh Yadav government.

The commission said that since BJP MLA Sangeet Som and then BSP MP Kadir Rana and Rashid Siddiqui were already facing police cases so there was no point in recommendation of further punishment.

Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati took a strong exception of the clean chit given by Justice Vishnu Sahai commission to the UP government in connection with Muzaffarnagar communal riots in 2013.

Mayawati in a statement said that the report, tabled in the assembly, has only proved that such commissions are constituted to hush up sensitive cases and let the state government off the hook. She said that the Supreme Court had made a strong observation against the ruling SP government for its alleged involvement in Muzaffarnagar communal riots.

The BSP supremo insisted that SP and BJP were hand in glove while fanning the communal conflagration in Muzzaffarnagar. This, she said, becomes more evident with the state government not doing enough to nail the BJP leaders who were found involved in the riot.

BJP leader Hirday Narain Dixit challenged Akhilesh Yadav government to order CBI probe into riots and arrest BJP leaders if found guilty. Dixit alleged that Akhilesh Yadav government was trying to save one of its ministers who was responsible for riots.

Rejecting Vishnu Sahai commission report, senior Congress leader Manish Tewari asked whether Samajwadi Party and BJP were in cahoots to absolve each other.

Prominent Ulema associated with prominent Islamic institutions like Deoband Daul-uloom and Nadwatul Ulema and All India Muslim Personal Law Board too condemned the report saying that it gave clean chit to state government and made mockery of communal riots victims.

Deoband Ulema said the impact of communal riots was witnessed recent by-poll for assembly in Deoband and Muzaffarnagar where Samajwadi Party lost. The results were indication of sentiments of Muslim community, which would be felt in 2017 assembly polls, Ulema added.

All India Muslim Personal Law Board officials observed that the report gave clean chit to state government despite its failure.

Prominent sunni religious leader Maulana Khalid Rasheed said those responsible for giving permission for mahapanchayat was mentioned in the report who participated in it and caused riots through communal speeches should be punished.

Senior Congress leader Satyadeo and spokesman of the party Satdeo Tripathi said that the communal riots continued for 13 days and fixing responsible only on SSP was just a mockery of the system. He further said that government should accept the failure and punish the guilty persons.

Mahant Divyagiri also said that she was not satisfied with the report and said she often observed that such commissions or committees were set up only to befool the public. (IPA Service)