Judicial inquiry into communal riots demanded

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has demanded a judicial inquiry into the circumstances leading to the communal riots in Hyderabad.

CPI (M) State secretary B.V. Raghavulu, addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, said that the situation had deteriorated to such an extent that a curfew had to be imposed in the old city. Though the situation was extremely grave, the police and the State government were playing the role of spectator, he alleged.

It had come out that the attacks were being made in a planned manner with the “conspirators” sending SMSs to different areas, he said.

The CPI (M) leader said no action was taken though there were early indications of trouble during Sriramanavami and Milad-un-nabi. He sought to know what the intelligence wing was doing.

Since there was a failure on the part of the police too, only a judicial inquiry would bring out the truth. It was the responsibility of the State government to make public the names of the conspirators. The Government was taking a ‘meditative and spiritual posture' towards all the problems the people were facing, he alleged.

Mr. Raghavulu made an appeal to the public to participate in large numbers in the picketing and jail bharo programmes of the Left parties and its allies on April 8 to register their protest against the indifference of the State and Central governments towards the issue of continuous rise in the prices of essential commodities.

Quoting figures, he said that the Central government came up with a budget to increase prices putting indirect burden to the tune of Rs. 45,000 crore on the people. On the other hand it reduced the subsidy on food and increased burden on the poor.

It became evident in the re-surveys conducted by the officials that ration cards were being weeded out to reduce the number of cards. A large portion of the cards that were weeded out were genuine.