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India's Main Opposition Party Accuses Modi Govt of Being Mute Spectator to Delhi's Communal Violence

© REUTERS / ALTAF HUSSAINIndia's Prime Minister Narendra Modi
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi - Sputnik International
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New Delhi (Sputnik): Violence between two groups that started in parts of northeast Delhi on Sunday over the citizenship law had taken a communal turn. At least 34 people were killed and scores of others, including 132 civilians, were injured.

Handing over a representation on Delhi's communal violence to Indian President Ram Nath Kovind, a delegation of India's principal opposition party, Congress, on Thursday accused the federal Home Minister Amit Shah of "abdication of Constitutional duty" to "protect and secure the lives and property of Delhi residents".

 Demanding Home Minister Shah's resignation yet again since Wednesday, Congress also claimed that the government remained a mute spectator amid the flare-up that started on Sunday over the Citizenship law between two groups, later to take a communal turn. 

Reading out the Congress party's representation to the Indian President, Congress's working president Sonia Gandhi said: "The home minister abdicated his duty and allowed the situation to escalate through his inaction. Therefore, there is no option left but to demand the immediate sacking of the home minister, who has utterly and abjectly failed in the performance of his primary and principal duties."

Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called the incidents of violence in Delhi a "matter of shame".

Singh, who was part of the Congress delegation that met the country's President said, "We called upon the President to suggest that whatever happened in the last few days in Delhi, was a matter of national shame. It shows the total failure of the central government to control the situation."

He added that the Congress party had requested that the President of India use his power to call upon the central government to assure peace and justice to people.

Congress politician Priyanka Gandhi on Wednesday led a peace march in New Delhi and called for action against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members involved in alleged provocative speeches in the weeks preceding Sunday's incidents.

On Sunday morning, a group of over 500 women staged a protest in the Jaffrabad area of northeast Delhi against the newly enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which grants Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The law essentially makes Indian citizenship easier for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Parsis, and Jains from the three nations. But it doesn't offer the same privileges to Muslim immigrants. 

In response to the anti-Citizenship law protest being staged in the Jaffrabad area, the BJP's Kapil Mishra on Sunday called for a rally in favour of the law at a location near a women's anti-CAA demonstration. Both groups clashed and engaged in stone-pelting. The incident soon took a communal turn with clashes continuing for the next two days, leaving 34 dead.

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