Victims seek SC intervention

A group of affected Muslims in the Muzaffarnagar violence has sought urgent intervention of  the Supreme Court on Wednesday to provide relief to  victims and direct CBI probe into the communal riots.

A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and V Gopala Gowda decided to hear their plea and directed for listing of their petition on Thursday.

According to the official estimate, the violence in Uttar Pradesh’s district and adjoining area had so far claimed 38 lives.

Senior advocate Gopal Subramaniam, representing the petitioners, including some advocates, said he wanted to bring forth the anguish of all citizens who were deprived of relief.

“The matter is of great importance. Human lives can’t be lost because of the negligence of government. The court should intervene to ensure that the relief should reach the people irrespective of their community,” he said.

It is important for the governent that the affected people get immediate relief,  counsel said.

“We only think that they are all human beings. We don’t think in terms of caste, creed and colour,” the court observed and put the petition for hearing on Thursday.
The petitioners claimed that the UP government had given “knee-jerk and inadequate” response to the situation which continued to be precarious on the ground.

“There are 20,000 people currently without food and shelter in Kalyanpur, Loi, Shamli, Jolla, Ambeta villages. And others, including infants, children and women and elderly and no facilities are being made available by the administration,” they claimed.

Besides seeking direction for curbing the spate of communal violence, they urged the court to frame guidelines for putting a mechanism in place to ensure that such incidents do not recur in the wake of clear warnings and inputs from the Intelligence Bureau.