The Sep 7-9 conflagration shattered the myth that only urban communities are prone to communal violence. Much of the violence in farm-rich Muzaffarnagar district, 130 from New Delhi, occurred in villages where Hindus and Muslims have lived mostly in peace for generations.
The riots, officials say, claimed 48 lives, injured scores and forced more than 40,000 people to flee their homes, a scenario that forced the government to deploy the army.
Police officials admit most of those killed were Muslims.
Khan, one of the Muslim leaders who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the latter's visit to Muzaffarnagar, said rightwing Hindu groups allied to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lit the communal fire.
"It will be wrong to call what happened in Muzaffarnagar as a Hindu-Muslim riot. Only Jats were involved and, that too, those aligned to the BJP," he said. "Gujjars, Baniyas and Brahmins were not involved. And Jats who tried to restore sanity were told to shut up. This was a Jat-Muslim clash."
He denied that the alleged harassment of a Hindu girl by a Muslim thug led to the violence.
"Like so much else, this is propaganda. There have already been some 100 small and big riots in UP since the Samajwadi Party took office (last year).
"What really happened in Muzaffarnagar was a fight between a Jat youth and two Muslim youths last month after their motorcycles were involved in an accident," he said, his account based on numerous conversions in the region.
