The Karnataka government on Saturday changed its circular that had ordered all rioting cases against “innocent minorities” be withdrawn, the Deccan Herald reported.
On Friday, Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy (pictured above) said, “We are looking at minor cases where people have been booked and considering their withdrawal. No big cases will be withdrawn.” The government circular had asked police divisions in the state to list details of cases from the past five years where people from minority communities were booked for communal violence.
After backlash from Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, who called the order “appeasement” ahead of Assembly elections later this year, the Congress-led government issued a new circular on Saturday in which the words “innocent minorities” were replaced with “innocent people”.
Reddy said the words “all innocent minorities” in the circular was a typographical error, the Deccan Herald reported. “It should have been innocent people.” He also said the earlier order, signed by the Additional Inspector General of Police Shivprakash Devraj, was withdrawn because of a typographical error.
“The BJP does not understand English properly,” Reddy told ANI.
“It was a clerical mistake to print the word ‘minorities’,” Reddy told The Times of India. “But the Rajendra Sachar Committee says there are many innocent minorities on whom false cases have been booked. Though the reminder talks about minorities in particular, our government is open to all,” he said.
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