UP Committee of CPI(ML) ND strongly condemns the Bijnor administration, particularly SP Bijnor for manipulating the Peda village anti Muslim flare up to cover up and save the communal elements and the role of SI Anurag Chowdhary, local Jat landlords Sansar Singh, Pritam Singh and Manoj Lala who organized the attack yesterday on the houses of poor Muslim landless workers of Dhobi community.

CPI(ML) has  demanded

1. Registration of cases against the guilty SI, policeman, Home guards and other accused. Immediate arrest of all the accused.
2. Registration of a case of criminal conspiracy and abetment to communal disharmony against SP Bijnor.
3. A Judicial enquiry into the incident, especially into the communal role of the police officials.
   Sections of the media have wrongly reported the incident as a clash between two communities. The entire attack was by Jat goondas belonging to a powerful family of Peda and the Home Guards on the Muslims. All the dead and injured are Muslims. They have also wrongly reported the matter as one of Muslim youth eve teasing Jat girls. The truth is that Jat boys were eve teasing Muslim girls going to school.
   As has been widely reported in local papers, several girls of Peda village go to study at their KPS school every day and assemble at the local bus stop at 8 am. Some Jat youths of neighbouring Nayagaon (Kajpura) used to indulge in eve teasing and yesterday this act led to an altercation and scuffle which was settled by intervention of seniors.
   There after Sansar Singh and Pritam Singh of Peda village called up the police and SI Anurag Chowdhary, one policeman and two Home guards belonging to Nayagaon arrived on the scene. All of them organized the Jat youth to attack the Muslims.  The attack was conducted with rifles and other firearms and a total of 4 persons including Aneesuddin (father of the girls whose eveteasing led to scuffle) and Ehsan Ahmad son of Ahmad Hassan, Sarfraz Ahmad s/o Zulfikar and one other were killed, 12 muslims have been grievously injured more than 25 of their houses have been ransacked and damaged. Manoj Lala s/o Sansar Singh was the most active in firing on the Muslims. Though the SI had left the scene immediately prior to the firing the Home Guards were present.
   When the affected families blocked the highway in protest, various officials including ADGP (Law and Order) Daljit Chowdhary came to the site. When the women demanded that the   houses of Pritam Singh and Sansar Singh be searched for illegal weapons used, officials refused to conduct the search.

Later on several local BJP leaders roamed around with the officials to manipulate the further proceedings.

UP is witnessing a number of communal incidents engineered by RSS-BJP in different parts of the state. Hundreds of such incidents are occurring every month. They are trying to repeat a Muzaffarnagar in view of the coming assembly elections in the state. An aspirant of the BJP ticket from the area is particularly active in fomenting communal trouble.

The role of the state machinery particularly of police and administration is very notorious in the attacks on Muslims. The deep communalization of the police and administration is evident in the way these attacks are orchestrated against the Muslims and subsequent distortions of the incidents. A number of the newspapers carried stories which implied that the girls eveteased belonged to Jat community while the girls belonged to Muslim community. Incidentally ADM of Bijnor is one Mr. Indramani Tripathi who was at the same post during communal attacks against Muslims in Muzaffarnagar in 2013. State Govt. of SP has been a spectator to these attacks against Muslims, doing pretty little while hoping to electorally benefit from the communal polarization resulting from such attacks.

All democratic and secular forces should stand against this communal onslaught engineered by RSS-BJP in connivance with state machinery.