Moradabad riots planned; RSS, BJP had no role: Panel in report

Forty-three years after communal riots killed at least 83 people and injured 112 others in Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad town, the state government has tabled a report of a judicial commission that cleared the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the local administration of any wrongdoing, and blamed local Muslim political leaders instead for what it called the pre-planned violence.

- Umesh Raghuvanshi

The violence on August 13, 1980 on Eid-ul-Fitr in Moradabad were the worst communal clashes in India's most-populous state since Independence.

According to the report, 83 people died on the day of the violence that continued till November that year, with riots spreading to several other districts, including Aligarh, Bareilly and Prayagraj, and ripples felt as far as Delhi. The then Congress government set up a one-man inquiry commission led by former Allahabad high court judge MP Saxena, who submitted his report in 1983. Since then, no government has made the report public.

"No government officer, employee or Hindu was responsible for fomenting trouble at Eidgah or other places. The RSS or the BJP nowhere came on the front in these riots. Even common Muslims were not responsible for violence. This was a handiwork of Muslim League led by Shamim Ahmad and Hamid Hussain alias Ajji and their supporters. The riots were pre-planned," said the judge in the 458-page report tabled by parliamentary affairs minister Suresh Khanna in the state legislative assembly on Tuesday.

Trouble broke out on August 13, 1980 when Eid prayers were being offered by around 50,000 Muslims in the Eidgah grounds, where a couple of pigs were spotted.