Watch: “Buy-a-Riot” Communal riots come with a price in Uttar Pradesh

Lucknow: With as many as 247 incidents of communal violence, Uttar Pradesh has earned the dubious distinction of topping the list of states that witnessed riots in 2013 and the situation is no different in 2014 too.

“Let us know whose clothes are to be torn. We’ll do that. Sometimes, boys go berserk. There are chances of people getting seriously injured in such situations.”

The state also registered a maximum of 118 communal incidents in 2012 in which 39 people were killed and 500 were injured. Three persons injured when a clash broke out between two communities in Toda village in Muzaffarnagar on Monday. But the violence has not stopped in the ‘Horror Pradesh’ with that. Now a communal violence can be ‘choreographed’ for just Rs 5 lakh. Rent the organization and the communal chaos can be plotted. Their main agenda is what price will be put on the plan.

As the state now is gearing for crucial Assembly election early next year, the stoking of communal fires threatens to polarise lakhs of citizens across the state has begun. A sting operation revealed that leaders from different religious organizations willing to orchestrate communal violence for a price anywhere between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh. The violence that is perpetrated across communal lines where the parties feel solidarity for their respective groups and victims are chosen based upon group membership.

The term includes conflicts, riots, disrupting screening of religious films and other forms of violence between communities of different religious faith or ethnic origins. Vandalism can be purchased. Cultural nationalism can go on sale. It is all acceptable in the ‘business’ of outrage. ‘Contract rioting’- thugs being handed out contracts or money to create communal chaos. The sting operation exposed the reality. “Let us know whose clothes are to be torn.

We’ll do that. Sometimes, boys go berserk. There are chances of people getting seriously injured in such situations,” a member of a Hindu organization says. “What’s on offer?” he asks when he is offered to disrupt the screening of a fictitious film on Lord Ram. “But the price has to be right,” he adds. Rs five lakh is what he quotes to orchestrate violence to promote a controversial film and declare the film “anti-Muslim”.

Courtesy: MetroIndia