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Modi gets the snub again, and again, and again
WSN Network

LONDON: In a developement that underlines the strength of evolved democracies unlike the one that prevails in India, the United Kingdom has ensured that Narendra Modi, Gujarat CM and a high-profile human rights violator clearly perceived as having presided overthe killings of Muslims in 2002, does not visit for a high-profile business event here.

Modi was to speak at the event but Asian human rights activists and Muslim groups strongly lobbied against his visit, finally managing to get the message through. The development comes as a second whammy to Modi who was denied Visa earlier by the United States on grounds of his tainted human rights record.

In India, Modi is the poster boy of hate-inspired right wing Hindutva groups and the BJP backs his communal policies all the way.

Human rights activists had written to the Home Secretary demanding that Modi should not be allowed to enter Britain because of his role in the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat. The India Summit, organised by Dow Jones, was scheduled for May 19-20.

Though on the record the visit was cancelled due to "business reasons”, Professor Gautam Appa of the London School of Economics and an activist of the Coalition to Stop Narendra Modi said that the visit would have “legitimised (Modi's) role in the most brutal chapter of communal violence in India.”

“The cancellation of India Summit is very welcome news indeed. It seems inconceivable that Mr. Modi’s human rights record played no role in the decision,” he said.

earlier, a planned visit by Mr. Modi to Britain in 2005 was cancelled after protests.

1 April 2009
 

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