The Rajasthan Muslim Forum today accused the State Government of showing communal bias in handling the situation in the violence-hit Sarada village in Udaipur district, from where most of the Muslim families have migrated following an attack by tribals. It alleged that the violence was planned and executed on the "Gujarat pattern''.
A six-member delegation of the Forum, which visited the tribal belt from August 6 to 9, found that Muslims had been terrorised by both police and tribals and police had launched a crackdown on the Muslim residents of Sarada after a visit of the Home Minister, Gulab Chand Kataria, in the last week of July.
The members of the Forum -- an apex body of Muslim organisations and institutions -- said at a Press conference here that the majority of the 200 Muslim families had shifted to Udaipur, Salumbar, Khairwada and Dungarpur fearing for their safety, as the tribals in the region were "still being provoked'' to launch a fresh offensive against the Muslim minority. "Police got an explicit message from the Government on the line of action to be taken after the Udaipur Superintendent of Police, Ravi Prakash Meherda, was removed,'' Mohammed Salim, a member of the Forum and president of the State unit of Jamat-e-Islami Hind, said. He alleged that Muslims were harassed by raids on their houses.
Mujahid Ali Naqvi -- one of the members of the delegation that visited Sarada -- said the 5,000-strong mob of tribals, which had attacked two Muslim localities in the village on July 30, was controlled by police and a bloodshed was prevented. "Yet, it was a successful experiment of communal forces to incite tribals against Muslims on the Gujarat pattern,'' he said.