Local khaps (community groups) and members of Hindu outfits at a mahapanchayat organised by Sarv Hindu Samaj here on Sunday announced to hold again the Brijmandal Jalabhishek Yatra in Nuh on August 28. The religious procession had to be aborted, after communal clashes broke out at Nuh’s Nalhar during the Vishwa Hindu Parishad-held yatra on July 31, claiming six lives.
Held amid tight security, the congregation representing 52 khaps or ‘paals’ as they are known in this region, sought a probe by National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the recent clashes to “unravel the conspiracy”, the merger of Muslim-dominated Nuh into other districts of Haryana, and the transfer of trial in the cases of communal clashes outside Nuh, among other things.
It also demanded setting up of a Central forces’ headquarters at Nuh, relaxation of conditions to grant arms licences to Hindus and ₹1 crore ex gratia and government job to the next of kin of those killed in the violence.
Shift to Pondri village
The venue for the mahapanchayat, earlier slated to be held in Nuh, was shifted to Pondri village in Palwal a day earlier after the Nuh administration refused permission due to security reasons. Additional Director-General of Police, Law and Order, Mamta Singh, and Superintendent of Police, Palwal, Lokender Singh, visited the venue before the meeting and told the media that permission was granted with certain conditions including a cap on the number of participants and prohibition of hate speech and carrying of weapons, batons, and inflammable material.
Ms. Singh said any decision on resumption of the religious procession would be taken after assessment of the situation on the ground.
Making a case for the resumption of the procession, several speakers at the day-long congregation said it was “inauspicious” to abort the procession in the middle and it must be completed in Shravan month only. While a few speakers blamed the incident on the administration for not making adequate security arrangements, the others raked up the issue of cow slaughter, love jihad and religious conversions to hint at the simmering tension between the two communities for long.
Advocate Kulbhushan Bhardwaj, who was earlier booked for hate speech at Gurugram’s Tigra, said the Hindus did not need any permission to visit the places of their worship.
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‘Bulldozer action’
BJP’s Nuh president Narender Patel, speaking at the mahapanchayat, said the people’s representatives such as sarpanches should have come forward to control the situation when the riots broke out. BJP’s Sohna MLA Sanjay Singh assured the mahapanchayat that the yatra would be completed at any cost and the administration was with them. “There have been cases of cow slaughter, murders and other tragic incidents earlier as well, but it was for the first time that the Chief Minister [Manohar Lal] initiated bulldozer action in Haryana. It might have been temporarily stopped due to court’s intervention. But I can assure you that after the stay is vacated, the culprits and their homes would not be spared,” said Mr. Singh.
Haryana Gau Rakshak Dal’s Acharya Azad called Mr. Lal a “weak Chief Minister” and said he should be replaced with “someone like Yogi [UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath]”.
