August 19, 2003	Tuesday	Jumadi-us-Sani 20, 1424

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LONDON, Aug 18: Chief Minister of Indian’s Gujarat state Narendra Modi faced protests and chants of “murderer” from Muslims here as he began his address in a Wembley conference hall here late on Sunday.

Many Indian Muslim organisations from across the UK, including the Indian Muslims Federation, joined hands to organize the protest against Modi and stood outside the hall carrying placards which read “Murderer, Go Home”, and “Modi go home”.

He arrived here on Sunday on a four-day private visit to the UK.

Indian Muslims are agonised and pained by his administration’s utter failure to protect their dear ones during the recent spate of violence in Gujarat.

They gathered outside the centre to show their indignation and expose his alleged involvement in the killing of Muslims.

President of Indian Muslims Federation Shamsuddin Aga told APP British Indian Muslims were “very angry” over the visit of Modi as they considered him responsible for the killings of thousands of Muslims in Gujarat last year.

He said according to a former minister named Harenpandya who was present in a meeting chaired by Modi after the Godhra killings, Modi had told police chiefs “not to intervene when Muslims are being attacked by Hindu zealots and mobs”. Harenpandya was later murdered in India, said Aga.

Meanwhile a leading British daily the Guardian said on Monday, “there was to be no Pinochet-style arrest for Narendra Modi. Instead, a man either responsible for mass-genocide or the saviour of India’s Hindus — depending on your point of view — rolled into Wembley conference centre last night besieged by hundreds of Muslim protesters from as far afield as Bolton, Birmingham and Leicester.”

“Three thousand people dead! Modi murderer!” they chanted. Modi arrived here on a private visit to the UK who is allegedly involved in the killings of Muslims in Gujarat as police did nothing as the Hindu extremists went around torching Muslims homes and killing them.

The Hindu chief minister of India’s Gujarat state is blamed for the sectarian murder of at least 2,000 Muslims last year. Now he is thought to be using his profile in Britain to push for bigger electoral rewards at home. It’s a policy his opponents say is tinged in blood, said the leading paper. —APP