New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday told the Rajya Sabha that it was the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which took a communal turn in New Delhi.
Responding to the allegations made by members of the opposition about the role of hate speeches delivered by BJP members, which stoked riots in Delhi, Shah reiterated his claims made in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday — that speeches by interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi and by AIMIM leader Waris Pathan had stoked the riots.
But on Thursday, for the first time, Shah squarely laid the blame of the communal riots on the shoulders of anti-CAA protesters.
"What was an anti-CAA protest got converted into communal protests at many places on February 24," he said.
Also countering the opposition's charge of deliberately transferring Justice S Muralidhar of the Delhi High Court, Shah said it was a routine transfer.
Shah said the fact that the riots happened when US President Donald Trump was visiting India suggested there were other forces at play in instigating and planning the violence. Many other BJP leaders, including party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, have earlier also suggested the role of anti-CAA protesters in the communal riots.
However, Congress leader Anand Sharma argued that while investigating agencies should probe the role of every body and person involved in the riots irrespective of their ideology or faith, everyone protesting against the CAA could not be considered a rioter.
"To say that those opposed to CAA were behind riots is not correct. Chief ministers of 11 states where anti-CAA resolutions were passed were not rioting. The law was passed because you had majority...there are petitions against it in the Supreme Court as well...all those people are not rioters," Sharma said.
Shah specified that 336 people had been identified as having come from Uttar Pradesh to instigate riots. "Teams have been dispatched to various places in UP to identify those miscreants and bring them to book," he said.
Shah said that cases of killing of policemen, burning and desecration of religious shrines, hospitals and education institutions were being dealt with as serious matters and that three special investigation teams were probing 50 such cases.
Shah said whoever is found guilty will be punished through transparent, "scientific" and evidence-based investigations. He said that it was through such means that the killers of Delhi Police Head Constable Rattan Lal and Intelligence Bureau (IB) staffer Ankit Sharma have been nabbed.
Responding to charges made by AAP leader Sanjay Singh that despite Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal writing to Shah requesting the Army's presence to control the situation, Shah said all senior political figures — him, members of Congress, BJP and AAP, including Kejirwal — had met on the night of February 25. "At that time nobody mentioned the possibility of bringing in the army. It was only on the 27th, when riots had abated, that Kejriwal talked about it," he said.
Shah again defended the Delhi Police, saying all the criticism for the riots should be levelled at him but not at the police force "who were able to contain riots to just 12 police stations".
"Riots could have happened in other parts of the city also but it was because of the alertness of the police force that they were brought under control in 36 hours and were prevented from spreading elsewhere," he added.
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