“I am writing a second letter which would be dispatched within couple of days. Chief Ministers would be asked to form a committee to scrutinize cases of detention of accused persons belonging to minority and take expeditious decisions. The committee should be different from the one that is suggested in POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002),” said Mr. Shinde.
Union Home Minister was talking to media persons on the sideline of celebration of Ninth Raising Day of National Disaster Response Force at Mundali, 30 km from Bhubhaneshwar on Sunday.
“Minority does not mean only Muslims. There are a lot of communities which come under definition of minority. Why we are emphasizing on this is because those who languish in jail mostly belong to minority communities,” he said.
Seeking to clear air on the controversies on his earlier advisory, Mr. Shinde said, “The ministry receives countless representations that people without facing trial in the court are languishing in jails for decades for which I had written to Chief Ministers to get matters inquired and those who would be found not guilty should be released from jails.”
“Our intention is very clear and sacred. If Bhartiya Janata Party wants to fight elections in name of religion and caste, let it do it. We are not interested in it. We are concerned about all communities. We are not insisting that a certain community should be in jail,” Home Minister said.
He reiterated that complaints about people belonging to minority communities suffering in jail keep pouring in and the same he repeatedly raised in Parliament
Recently, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi said he would seek intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about Home Minister’s repeated statements about wrongful arrest of youngster of minority communities.
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