Attack on migrants: Nitish expresses concern, Adityanath says Gujarat CM assured him of migrants’ safety

Condemning the rape of the minor, Nitish said that the guilty must be punished but an entire community should not be “tarred with the same brush”.

“Our government is aware and alert. I spoke to the Gujarat Chief Minister Sunday. Our chief secretary and director general of police are also in touch with their counterparts in Gujarat,” Kumar told reporters in Patna.

“If somebody has committed a crime, he must be punished severely. But on account of one incident, people should not generalise and hold a grouse against an entire state,” he said.

Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath said he was assured by Rupani that his government would ensure safety of all. “The Gujarat CM told me over the phone that there has been no incident in the past three days and that he had appealed to people against paying heed to any rumours,” Adityanath said in a statement released in Lucknow.

“Gujarat is a peace-loving state and a model of development. Those who do not have any issue (to attack the state government) spread such rumours. Those who do not want development spread rumours,” Adityanath said.

“Some north Indians living in Gujarat had called me and I told them not to pay heed to the rumours, and on keeping the local administration and government in confidence,” Adityanath said.

He asked everyone to cooperate with the Gujarat government while hailing steps taken by the Gujarat CM to maintain peace, an a spokesman said.

Meanwhile, a JD(U) leader in a two-page open letter to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi blamed the Congress for the violence in Gujarat. “You appointed your Gujarat MLA Alpesh Thakor as one of the national secretaries in-charge of Bihar and his outfit, Gujarat Kshatriya Thakor Sena, is driving out migrant Biharis,” Neeraj Kumar, a JD(U) MLC and spokesman, said.

Reacting to the JD(U) MLC’s charge, Congress leader Prem Chand Mishra said that instead of writing a letter to Rahul, Neeraj should speak to his “boss Nitish Kumar”, who is running a government in alliance with the BJP that rules Gujarat.

RJD leader and former Deputy CM of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav also hit out at the BJP for the attacks on north Indian migrants.

(Inputs from PTI)