Tiruchi, September 25, 2013: A public interest litigation filed in the Madras High Court bench here on Tuesday has sought a ban on BJP leader and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi entering Tiruchi on September 26 and addressing any public meeting on the grounds that his visit would cause “imminent danger to public tranquillity” and had a “high probability of causing communal riots.”

The petitioner, M. Elango, managing trustee of the New Era Trust, claimed that under Mr. Modi’s leadership, between February 28 and March 2, 2002, more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in Gujarat. The killings were aided and abetted by the Gujarat government, he alleged.

All police encounters in Gujarat between 2002 and 2007 were fake and carried out on the instructions of Mr. Modi, he alleged.

Various commissions, such as the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), have condemned the role of Mr. Modi in providing material support for the ‘politically motivated attacks on minorities in Gujarat’, Mr. Elango claimed in his petition.

The United States of America has refused to grant a visa to Mr. Modi because of his alleged role in the post-Godhra riots, the petitioner added.

Several of Mr.Modi’s speeches were ‘blatantly anti-Muslim’, he alleged. Therefore, he pleaded for a direction to the district magistrate to invoke the provisions of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code and ban the public meeting to be addressed by the Gujarat Chief Minister.

According to the petitioner, he had submitted representations to the Home Secretary of Tamil Nadu, the Tiruchi district collector and the Tiruchi commissioner of police seeking a ban on the BJP leader’s entry into Tiruchi, on September 18. But they were not considered, he claimed in his petition.

Source: The Hindu, September 25, 2013