Could the Muzaffarnagar Riots have been prevented ?

Sometimes, the biggest of the problems, have the easiest solutions. Let’s look at a turn of events, which led to Riots in Muzaffarnagar. A Hindu girl was harassed by two Muslim youths. Upon which, the brothers of the Hindu girl, beat the Muslim guy to death. This infuriated the members of Muslim Community, who in turn killed the Hindu Brothers. And the cops reportedly registered an FIR against the girl’s parents. Now, was this a matter of Hindu Muslim divide? I don’t think so. I think the Brothers could have reacted in pretty much a similar manner if the alleged harassers were not Muslim.

How could the government have stopped the riot?

I believe, that in first place, if our Police was pro-active in protecting our citizens, there would not have been any need for the brothers to take law in their own hands. We have repeatedly seen in Delhi over last few months (and it happens all over India) that Police shows no empathy, whatsoever towards rape victims, and out rightly refuses to register FIRs. Almost every week, an AAP candidate is beaten up, trying to get the Cops to register FIRs against the Rapists. But, if this is the response of our Police in Rape cases, just imagine what would they do in cases of harassment?

There have been cases, where victims have given the photos of harassers to the Police, yet our Police have not been able to take any action against them. And it is this failure of our Police, which led the brothers to teach a lesson to the harasser themselves. Had there been an active Police, the brothers would not have killed the harasser, they wouldn’t have died themselves, and there wouldn’t have been any Riots.

A careful examination of the incidence shows that this was not initially a Hindu-Muslim rivalry. Some people later converted it into one, for their political gains. And the development of this issue has totally shifted our focus from solving the root cause of this riot, i.e. "Providing security to our women from unwanted harassment".