BHOPAL/NEW DELHI, 15 April — The government of the central state of Madhya Pradesh is considering to ban a few Hindu hard-line groups.
Indications are that the government is contemplating to ban Hindu revivalist Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal, sources close to Chief Minister Digvijay Singh said.
The government has turned the heat on these groups both at the political as well as administrative levels. The activists of the groups are being detained under the National Security Act (NSA).
Anticipating the government’s move, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal activists have started giving provocative speeches to whip up communal passion.
Digvijay has been for long demanding ban on these groups particularly the VHP and the Bajrang Dal describing them as fundamentalist and communal outfits indulging in disturbing the peace and tranquillity of the country. The chief minister has already announced that the government employees, if found attending RSS functions, will be sacked. He has also banned the RSS assembly (shakhas) on public and government land.
Police has invoked NSA in the state to detain some influential VHP leaders in Indore and Bhopal. The district convener of the Bajrang Dal in Ujjain has also been put behind the bars under NSA.
At least 100 VHP-Bajrang Dal workers have also been arrested in different parts of the state. The president of the BJP-controlled Indore Municipal Corporation, along with two corporators and 15 workers, were in jail since March 11. The authorities have not even produced them before any court.
Digvijay who has been demanding ban on these organizations from the central government for long, told the state assembly that his government would consider banning any organization that disturbs law and order and communal harmony in the state. He said, “earlier also I had demanded to ban these organizations but not found much favor” adding that after members of some of these organizations were found to be indulged in a recent violence in Orissa Assembly, more people were demanding that they be banned.
These groups have been widely blamed for the recent upsurge of violence in Gujarat where over 900 people have lost their lives. The VHP is at the forefront of a campaign to built a temple at a disputed site in Ayodhya. The temple campaign has resulted in a series of Hindu-Muslim clashes across the country claiming hundreds of lives.
No compensation for riot victims
Even a-month-and-a-half after sectarian violence broke out in Gujarat, no compensation has been paid to victims and the situation at relief camps is deteriorating, rights activists were quoted by newspapers as saying.
“Our people working in the camps have told us that the government is yet to keep up its promise of awarding compensation to families of the dead,” activist Syeda Hameed said.
Fleeing their homes for life, Muslims have taken refuge in makeshift relief camps, many of which lack basic essentials. The government promised to award 100,000 rupees for the kin of those killed in the violence and compensate for the loss of property.
But members of Citizen’s Initiative, a platform for peace activists and religious groups that has been working in relief camps, said nothing had come the way of victims. The activists also complained of shortage of food and other relief material at the camps.
Prakash Louis, director of the Indian Social Institute, said: “People in the camps immediately need at least some initial compensation. Though there were several announcements, the process has not yet started.
