Muzaffarnagar riots: More than 800 accused absconding

, March 27: More than 800 accused of last year's Muzaffarnagar riot cases are yet to be arrested despite the fact that court has served arrest warrants against them, SIT sources said here today.

Additional Superintendent of Police, Special Investigation Team, Manoj Jha told PTI here that the 390 people were arrested and 75 surrendered in court while 804 are still absconding in the riot cases.

Accused who are absconding, included gang rape and murder accused, he said. Police had registered six gangrape cases against 24 people during the riots but only two accused are arrested, Jha said.

In village Kutba, where eight people, including a woman, were killed, police have arrested only three accused out of 56.

300 people were arrested, while 75 surrendered in the court

Sources said that most of the absconding accused hails from worst riot-affected villages like Lisadh, Lank, Bahawdi, Phugana Mohadpur and Raisingh where the highest casualties were reported. The Supreme Court yesterday, has rejected plea of the Uttar Pradesh government that due to local resistance arrest of the riot accused were getting delayed.

The Court has directed the State government to arrest the accused. A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam said that the incidents of communal clashes and subsequent violence could have been prevented by the Samajwadi Party-ruled government if the intelligence agencies had detected these problems.

The communal violence, which had broken out on September 7, last year in Muzaffarnagar and adjoining towns, had claimed over 40 lives. It left 85 others injured and rendered 51,000 people, mostly Muslims, homeless.

PTI