9. Jaitley refutes Oppn charge on inaction
PTI [ THURSDAY, MARCH 07, 2002  8:28:31 PM ]

NEW DELHI: Law Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday refuted the Opposition charge that police and administration had not acted promptly to control communal riots in Gujarat.
Intervening in a discussion on Gujarat incidents in Rajya Sabha, Jaitley said police arrested nearly 4000 rioters during the first five days and fired 2000 rounds to control the situation.

As many as 98 people were killed in police firing, he said.

The minister said the epicentre of the riots was Godhra incident where innocent people travelling in a train were killed.

He appealed to members to help in cooling down the atmosphere and not inflame it further by emotional and baseless statements and by creating a fear psychosis.
Jaitley, who represents Gujarat in the House, said the situation in the state could have been brought under control quickly if all sections of people, including the media, had behaved responsibly.

The minister referred to a newspaper report quoting Gujarat Chief Minister Narinder Modi as saying that according to Newton's Law of Motion to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Jaitley said the chief minister had not made this remark and had sent a written denial to the newspaper, but the damage had been done.

Similarly, he said, the Prime Minister had not said as alleged by a member that they did not want votes of a particular community.

This allegation had been denied by the Prime Minister's Office but was still being made by members, Jaitley said.

The House witnessed acrimonious scenes when the Minister tried to compare the role played by police and administration in Gujarat to 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi.
                                                                                                                     
Jaitely said the members were forgetting what had happened in Delhi in 1984 when nearly 3,000 innocent people were killed in one day and neither police nor army was deployed by the then government to control the situation.

Compared to the 1984 situation, he said, the government and police in Gujarat had acted promptly and tried to control violence.

This led to a strong protest from agitated opposition members, especially Shabana Azmi (NOM), Sarla Maheshwari, Jibon Roy (both CPI-M) and Suresh Pachauri (Cong) who asked the Minister not to compare the two incidents.

Joining them, Swaraj Kaushal, whose Haryana Vikas Party is supporting the NDA government, said Jaitely's comparison was "bad".

The Minister said he was not comparing the two riots but only referring to an earlier similar situation.

Denying the Opposition charge that police had acted in a partisan manner, Jaitley said police had rescued members of the minority community in as many as 20 places,including 400 in Panchmahal district alone.

Jaitley appealed to opposition members not to indulge in "blame-game" and work unitedly to cool down tempers and bring the situation to normal.

He said the Opposition would not be able to achieve its political aim as the government was not going to accept their demand for the removal of the Chief Minister.

The maturity of Indian society, he said, would be judged not by blaming one another but by learning from what has happened in Gujarat so that such incidents do not recur.

He appealed to the members, especially those belonging to the minority community, not to create a fear psychosis in the country.