HYDERABAD, Oct 14: Political and religious leaders of Pangrio town have rejected claims about desecration of a Bheel’s body and accused Sindhi nationalist parties and a local landlord of inciting communal hatred between the two communities who have been living in peace for decades.

Speaking at a press conference at the Hyderabad Press Club on Monday, local PML-F leader Mohammad Peeral Khoso, Maulvi Mohammad Mithan Khoso, Maulvi Abdul Quddus Naqshbandi and leader of Pangrio chapter of Sunni Tehreek Rana Sajid Ali Qadri said the landlord and nationalist parties were defaming Muslims over the burial for their vested interests.

They said that there was a separate crematorium and graveyard for Hindus where they buried their dead but on Oct 5 a couple of Bheels armed with guns brought the body of Bhoro Bheel to the Muslim graveyard and forcibly buried him there despite protest by some people present there.

About an hour after the burial, a large number of people gathered in the graveyard and asked police and the Bheels to take out the body and bury it where it rightly belonged, they said.

They gave them 14 hours to take back the body but no one came forward. Therefore, after the end of the deadline, the body was taken out and handed over to police officials. Nobody desecrated the body as was being claimed now by the Bheels and their supporters, they said.

But again, they said, a number of armed men brought the body back to the Muslim graveyard and tried to rebury him there but they were persuaded by local landlord Mir Manzoor Ahmed Talpur not to do so.

He gave them space for the grave on his own land to bury it there and urged them to settle the issue in a peaceful manner, they said.

They accused landlord Haji Masood Talpur, his son Mir Rizwan and leaders of Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) and other nationalist parties of tying to fan communal violence while ignoring the fact that Hindus themselves were responsible for the incident as they deliberately buried Bhoro in the Muslim graveyard.