Uttar Pradesh Government on Tuesday accepted the Nimesh Commission report on arrest of two Muslim youths in 2007 on terror charges, triggering spontaneous criticism from BJP which said it smacked of SP’s Muslim ‘appeasement policy’.
“The report was accepted at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday,” Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav told newspersons. The RD Nimesh Commission probed the arrest of two Muslim youths - Tariq Qasmi and >Khalid Mujahid - after serial blasts in courts in Lucknow, Faizabad, Varanasi and Gorakhpur in 2007.
Mr. Yadav, who presided over the Cabinet meeting, said the report, along with the action taken report, will be tabled in the Uttar Pradesh legislature during its monsoon session.
BJP accuses of vote-bank politics
Flaying the government for accepting the report, state BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said, “The government is not looking at things on merit but only acting with an eye on vote bank politics and today’s move is just another example of the appeasement policy.”
Mr. Pathak said, “The report was handed over to the government in August last year but it did not act on it then.... Today it took the decision under pressure of Mujahid’s family.”
Qasmi and Mujahid, who died on May 28 while he was being brought back to Lucknow jail from the Faizabad court, were arrested in 2007 by the Special Task force of the UP police in Barabanki allegedly along with explosive materials.
Following hue and cry by social activists, the then Mayawati government constituted the Commission to probe into the allegations that the two Muslims youths were falsely implicated.
The commission, in its report submitted to the state government in August last year, is said to have found discrepancies in the police theory.
The Samajwadi Party had promised in its manifesto for 2012 Assembly elections that if voted to power it will withdraw cases against Muslims booked under false charges.
