AHMEDABAD, India: Britain said yesterday it would end a 10-year boycott of the leader of India’s western Gujarat state imposed over deadly religious riots there in 2002 that left three Britons dead.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, a right-wing Hindu nationalist, came to power shortly before the riots triggered by the deaths of nearly 60 Hindu pilgrims in a train fire that was initially blamed on a mob of Muslims.
He is accused of doing too little to prevent the blood-letting, which left more than 2,000 mainly Muslims dead in an orgy of violence and arson, according to rights groups. The government figures put the death toll at about 1,000.
Britain’s junior Foreign Minister Hugo Swire has asked the ambassador to India to visit Gujarat and meet Modi to discuss a “wide range of issues of mutual interests”, the British foreign office said in a statement.
“We want to secure justice for the families of the British nationals who were killed in 2002 (riots), we want to support human rights and good governance in the state,” the statement quoted Swire as saying.
Three British nationals — Saeed Dawood, Muhammad Aswat Nallabhai and Shakil Dawood — were burnt to death in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat, a state that is governed by India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Previously, British officials were forbidden from dealing directly with Modi, but there were contacts with senior bureaucrats in Gujarat, where British companies have invested, an embassy source in New Delhi said.
Britain’s effort to resume links with Modi’s regime came less than two months after a Gujarat court sentenced a former member of his government to 28 years in jail for her role in instigating the 2002 riots.
The Aug. 31 sentencing of Maya Kodnani, who served as minister from 2007-2009, was seen as a setback for Modi who is thought to have prime ministerial ambitions.
Despite the scars of the sectarian violence, Gujarat in recent years has lured foreign firms to its soil with reliable power supply, good infrastructure by Indian standards, and the availability of educated but cheap labor.
Britain ends 10-year boycott of Modi
