New Delhi: Muslims who saw armed gangs drag out innocents and slaughter them in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh are refusing to go back to their villages, a Muslim leader said on Sunday.
Zafar Islam Khan, president of the All India Majlis-e-Mushawarat, also said that the horrendous communal riots were the work of Hindutva forces but the Uttar Pradesh government was also to blame for inaction.
Khan told IANS after his second visit to Muzaffarnagar in a week that those Muslims in refugee camps who witnessed their own neighbours indulge in cold blooded killings were adamantly refusing to return to their villages.
"There are two types of Muslims in the refugee centres," he said. "One is those who saw people being killed or burnt. They are so traumatized that they have said they won't go back (to their homes), come what may."
Such people, he said, belong primarily to four villages including Lakh, Lasadh and Pataudi.
"The others basically fled their villages out of fear. They have started going back," said Khan, 64.
