Taking a serious note of the recent communal clashes in Muzaffarn-agar and amid specific intelligence reports of such incidents spiralling in the months to come, the Cabinet Secretariat will soon write to all the states to formulate a new set of stringent guidelines to check cases of communal violence.
The decision comes in wake of the Cabinet secretary Ajit Seth discussing the issue of increase in communal clashes with some of the states at a crucial meeting last Friday. Sources said the meeting also discussed intelligence inputs, particularly the one sent to the Uttar Pradesh government, which clearly stated that there would an increase in communal backlash in the months to come.
Now, sources added, the Centre is extremely concerned that in an attempt to polarise their respective votebanks political parties will try and engineer communal clashes, much the same way that was witnessed in Muzaffarnagar. Top government officials said as law and order is primarily a state subject, there is little that the Centre can do except play an advisory role.
Sources claim intelligence agencies have informed the government that states which could potentially witness communal violence in the run up to Lok Sabha polls include UP, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Assam among others. There is also fear that some subversive elements might try and take advantage of the situation to trigger communal violence.
The Centre, sources added, was upset with the UP administration not only for its failure to contain the riots but also for failing to react to specific intelligence alerts about the possibility of increase in communal violence in the state. “
Though some measures like increasing deployment in sensitive police station, forming committees of elders from different communities, regular meetings between senior police officers and community leaders were discussed at last week’s meeting the Centre now wants the States to take more initiatives.
“The states have been told to put a foolproof mechanism in place to check communal violence and inform us accordingly. If we feel the measures taken are not adequate enough we can always advise the sates to do mor,” the official added.