23,500 riots in the country – Arvind Kejriwal

By on February 25, 2014
Promising to field “adequate” women and minority candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, on Monday, declared that special investigation teams will be set up to investigate 23,500 cases of rioting across the country if his party comes to power at the Centre.

“Wherever we are in power — whether at the Centre or any state — we will get all riot cases registered there probed by SITs. If even one case is solved and a senior leader of the party which instigated the riot is put behind bars, no further riots will take place in the country,” he said.

Speaking at an interaction at the India Islamic Cultural Centre on Monday, where many people in the audience insisted on an assurance from him to contest against Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha elections, Kejriwal said that if Modi chooses to contest, AAP will field a very strong candidate against him. But he did not say whether he would take on Modi himself.

Kejriwal said all riots are instigated by a political party or leader. “The two biggest problems facing us right now are communalism and corruption. Neither BJP nor Congress has done anything for Hindus and Muslims. As soon as something happens, police arrest two or three Muslims. There is a lot of insecurity among Muslims in places like Okhla. But to address the problem of those who have been implicated in terrorism cases, we need more courts and judges and must fast-track all their cases,” he said.

Former law minister Somnath Bharti said BJP is pitting Hindus against Muslims while Congress has decided that it needs to keep Muslims poor and uneducated to be able to rule. “AAP is here to make them realize that the politics of Communism has no place in today’s world.”

On Monday, the Editor’s Guild issued a notice to AAP for defamatory allegations against media houses over the past month, but the party continued to spew venom against television channels and newspapers. Bharti said people should not get swayed by media “propaganda” against AAP. However, the party’s Lok Sabha candidate from Chandni Chowk, Ashutosh, said a large part of Indian media is being pressured.

“There is also a social mafia that attacks you if you mention the ‘M’ word. There is an attempt to reduce the credibility of the media,” he said.

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