NEW DELHI, 1 February 2003 — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat replaced his ambassador here after India objected to the envoy’s presence at a function where speakers criticized anti-Muslim violence in the western state of Gujarat, reports said yesterday.

The Palestinian Embassy in New Delhi confirmed to AFP that Khalid Al-Shaikh had left his post as ambassador and that a new envoy, Osama Al-Ali, arrived Thursday.

The Asian Age newspaper said the Foreign Ministry asked Arafat to replace Shaikh after the envoy attended an Indo-Arab League meeting last year in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad where speakers reportedly blasted Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government and passed a resolution condemning the Gujarat unrest. About 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, died in the western state, which is ruled by Vajpayee’s Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party, in vigilante attacks last year. The violence followed the torching of a train carrying Hindu activists last February in which 58 people were killed.

Shaikh protested to the Foreign Ministry that he did not speak at the Hyderabad meeting and could not be held responsible for the statements of others, The Asian Age said.

Syed Vikharuddin, chairman of the Indo-Arab League, yesterday described the alleged Indian pressure to remove Shaikh as “politically motivated.” “Khalid Al-Shaikh is a true friend of India and made no comment on Gujarat,” Vikharuddin told AFP in Hyderabad.

He said last May’s conference focused on Palestine, not Gujarat, but that several Indian opposition leaders in attendance did criticize the government.

“How could a foreign diplomat prevent them from doing so?” Vikharuddin asked.

He said the meeting’s resolution focused on the Palestinian issue and that a copy of it was forwarded to the Foreign Ministry in New Delhi.

The Indo-Arab League, formed in 1967, is a secular organization that has often organized such conferences, two of which were attended by Arafat himself, Vikharuddin said.

The Palestinian Embassy in New Delhi declined to comment on the reasons for Shaikh’s replacement.

India has long enjoyed close relations with Arafat but has a warming relationship with Israel, particularly through defense cooperation.

In Hyderabad meanwhile, police claimed yesterday to have busted a gang that allegedly murdered nine Hindus over the last 10 months to avenge the killings of Muslims in Gujarat and incite sectarian violence in the city. (Agencies)