VHP activists not involved in violence: Haren Pandya

GANDHINAGAR, JAN 5: A day after senior Sangh Parivar leaders in South Gujarat asserted that the Hindu Jagaran Manch HJM was a part of t...

GANDHINAGAR, JAN 5: A day after senior Sangh Parivar leaders in South Gujarat asserted that the Hindu Jagaran Manch HJM was a part of the Sangh, Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya claimed today that Vishwa Hindu Parishad VHP and Bajrang Dal activists were not directly involved in the recent violent attacks on Christians in Dangs, incidents which he said were a 8220;trivial communal happening8221;.

However, he admitted that 8220;some of them might have mingled in the rally organised by the HJM in Ahwa on December 258221;.

Pandya also sought to play down Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee8217;s statement in Bangalore yesterday that he would be visiting Dangs soon. The Prime Minister, said Pandya, was coming to get first-hand information about the incidents. His visit would not only help restore peace and instil confidence among Christians of the region but would also help bring out the facts about the violence, Pandya added.

Incidentally, the State Government had been saying all along that the incidents in Dangs were being 8220;blown out of proportion8221;.

Seeking to support this stand, the Minister said not a single person had lost his life in the violence, nor had anyone been was reported missing, and that the damages to the private properties were estimated at 8220;only8221; Rs 4 lakh.

In a late-night development, meanwhile, Manoj Shashidhar was appointed DSP, Dangs.

ENS adds from Surat: No untoward incident was reported from any part of Dangs district during the past 24 hours. On Sunday, there had been reports of prayer meetings being disrupted.

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The police, who described the situation as peaceful, have arrested 16 people in different cases of violence in the district; they had all been named in cases reported before December 31.

Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, Janata Dal president Sharad Yadav, and former Union minister and Member of Parliament Ram Vilas Paswan are visiting the trouble-torn district on January 5. The team is also expected to visit Limbayat area of Surat, where three auto-rickshaws and a Maruti car kept in the compound of Seventh-Day Adventist Telugu Church were damaged by a group of miscreants last week.

They will also visit Amod, where communal violence had erupted recently, during their three-day visit to Gujarat.