Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s government has done the right thing in making the 1980 Moradabad riots judicial inquiry report public, by tabling it in the Assembly. Forty-three years after 83 people died and more than 100 others were injured in the riots on August 13, 1980, the judicial commission’s report has now been made public. Dozens of houses were burnt. Vishwanath Pratap Singh was the UP chief minister. Singh had set up a judicial inquiry commission headed by Justice Mathura Prasad Saxena, who submitted his report after three years.
For 40 years, the report was not made public. Yogi Adityanath’s government traced the report lying dust in archives and made it public. The report clearly reveals that the riots were engineered neither by Hindus nor Muslims, but by two Muslim League leaders. The two Muslim League leaders, Dr Shamim Ahmed and Dr Hamid Hussain are now dead. The report justifies the local administration’s decision to open fire at rioters. The report says, both the Muslim League leaders and their supporters deliberately spread the rumour that pigs have been let loose at the Eidgah on Eid day, and this enraged the community members who were offering prayers. Soon afterward, there were attacks on police stations and shops in other communities.
The report says the riots continued for several days after Eid. The report reveals majority of the victims were killed in a stampede. Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya alleged that both the Congress and Samajwadi Party wanted to hush up the inquiry report, but it was Yogi Adityanath who made the report public. The question arises: there were several governments in UP during the last 43 years, but why did they hush up the report? Was it because the judge found the hands of Muslim League leaders in the riots? Yogi Adityanath has shown courage in making the report gathering dust for four decades. There are still many families in Moradabad, both Hindu and Muslim, whose members are still missing. Yogi has been the chief minister of UP for the last six years.
He says, he has made Uttar Pradesh riot-free. Now that the report has been made public after 43 years, it will be advisable for all not to politicize the issue. The truth, though bitter, has now come out. It must be welcomed.
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