Gopalgarh incident not communal, says Muslim body

Claiming that the Gopalgarh incident which claimed nine lives was not a communal riot, the fact finding team of Muslim Forum on Wednesday said it happened due to the total failure of the state government and demanded stepping down of chief minister Ashok Gehlot and home minister Shanti Dhariwal.

The Muslim Forum, a joint organization of all the Muslim organizations of the state, lashed out at the Ashok Gehlot-led government for the incident at Gopalgarh in Bharatpur in which nine Meo Muslims have died so far.

"Innocent people have been killed. This is not the first incident in which the innocent are being targeted in the state during the tenure of the state government. The state has witnessed violence in Sarada and Manohar Thana. But the government has not done anything to check such incidents," a representative of the forum, Salim Engineer, said.

He said that now the forum will take up the issue with the Central leadership and apprise them that all is not well in Rajasthan as "people are not safe in the leadership of Ashok Gehlot".

"We have lost faith on the state government. Our demand is that cases of murder should be lodged against collector, superintendent of police, circle officer, station house officer of Gopalgarh and the policemen involved in the firing. They should also be suspended," he said while addressing reporters on Wednesday.

He claimed that the state government tried to mislead people on Gopalgarh incident. It was, however, PCC chief Chandrabhan and a Central Congress team of Congress which pointed out that the incident happened due to administrative failure after inspecting the situation in Gopalgarh, Engineer said.

He further said the incident was not a communal riot but a massacre of the innocent people by the police.