PUNE: Life was fast returning to normal in the western Indian state of Maharashtra after large-scale rioting between Hindus and Muslims for the last eight days.
Following a gradual improvement in the situation, the authorities simultaneously relaxed curfew in the towns of Miraj, Sangli and Ichalkaranji for four hours Wednesday morning. No untoward incident was reported during the relaxation.
Miraj, where the violence started on Sept. 3 after Muslims protested Hindu radicals setting up a structure they considered humiliating to them, appeared to be calm on Wednesday.
A peace formula was worked out at an all-party meeting called by state Chief Minister Ashok Chavan in Mumbai on Tuesday evening. The meeting was attended by ministers, provincial lawmakers, representatives of Hindus and Muslims and leaders of all major political parties.
Chavan said “innocent” people arrested during the rioting would be freed immediately — one of the demands of radical Hindu parties.
During the meeting it was also decided to relax curfew in the riot-hit towns to allow a Hindu religious procession to take place peacefully. Speaking to journalists after the meeting at the government guesthouse in Mumbai, Chavan said it was unanimously decided that curfew would be relaxed for a specific period.
“All parties have agreed that it is nonpolitical issue and the need of the hour is to restore law and order,” Chavan said, adding that all charges against innocent people who were wrongly taken into custody will be dropped.
The issue of controversial posters depicting the slaying of a Mughal general by the Maratha warrior Shivaji will be resolved at the local level, he said.
Meanwhile, incidents of stone-pelting were reported from some places in the area. In Manerajuri in Sangli district, where a mosque was set afire on Tuesday, police lobbed teargas shells to control a mob.
In a significant move, Gopinath Munde, vice president of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said on Wednesday he would not make the Sangli riots an issue in the upcoming state elections. “That’s my promise,” he told Arab News in Pune.
Refusing to tow a line of confrontation over the communal violence, Munde categorically ruled out the possibility of making the riots a campaign issue.
“I will not raise this issue during the assembly polls campaign,” he said.
Munde’s statement comes in sharp contrast to the stand taken by the hard-line Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which issued a strongly-worded statement on Monday saying the violence was pre-planned to make political mileage in the assembly elections.
