WASHINGTON, March 20: The State Department on Saturday defended the decision to bar the Gujarat chief minister from the United States, saying that Narendra Modi was refused a visa because an Indian agency had held his government responsible for the 2002 riots in his state that killed more than 2,000 Muslims. Indian-American leaders have criticized the decision, calling it an insult to India.

State Department’s deputy spokesman Adam Ereli rejected the suggestion that the US action amounted to blaming Mr Modi for the massacre. “The fact of the matter is that it was the Indians who investigated the riots and it was the Indian government which determined that state institutions failed to act in a way that would prevent violence and would prevent religious persecution,” said Mr Ereli.

“So this isn’t a matter of the United States saying something happened or something didn’t happen. It’s a matter of the United States responding to a finding by the Indian National Human Rights Commission pointing to comprehensive failure on the part of the state government of Gujarat to control persistent violations of rights,” he added.

Mr Ereli said that on the basis of the findings of this commission, the US administration made certain decisions. “Number one, we determined … that the terms for issuing (a diplomatic) visa under US law had not been met, and so we decided not to issue the visa, based on US law and based on findings of fact by the Indian National Commission.”

“And number two, we determined that an existing visa that Mr Modi had, should be revoked under (a US law) which says that any foreign government official who is responsible for or directly carried out at any time particularly severe violations of religious freedom should not be eligible for a visa.”