Concerned About Communal Violence In India: U.S.


WASHINGTON: The United States continues to express concern about communal violence in India, the Obama Administration has said strongly refuting reports that it has gone soft on the Gujarat communal riots in 2002 and the alleged role of its Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

“I wouldn’t characterise our assessment that way. I think you’ll find if you review the text that we’re very clear about our concerns about several episodes of communal violence across India,” U.S. State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters.

Psaki was responding to a question on the latest annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released by Secretary of State John Kerry.

“If Modi was mentioned in previous human rights reports for India by name, and (why) he is not mentioned in this one,” she was asked.

Paski said that there is no change in the U.S. policy on communal riots in Gujarat about a decade ago.

Both the annual reports of the 2011 and 2012 mentions Modi in its report but it no way refers to his role in the communal riots.

The latest report said that, “Civil society activists continued to express concern about the Gujarat Government’s failure to protect the population or arrest many of those responsible for communal violence in 2002 that resulted in the killings of more than 1,200 persons, the majority of whom were Muslim, although there was progress in several court cases,” the report said.

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Source: PTI