Written by Appu Esthose Suresh | Muzaffarnagar/ Meerut/saharanpur | August 8, 2014 8:10 am
The analysis of police records of all 600-odd communal incidents shows they were often triggered by trivial issues.
As many as 605 communal incidents took place in the 71 days in Uttar Pradesh between May 16 and July 25 — that is, nearly nine incidents a day on average — but fewer than a dozen people died in them. That, however, is of little comfort.
For, police records scrutinised by The Indian Express suggest the creation of a carefully calibrated state of unrest — in which tensions simmered just below the surface, and frequently erupted in an “incident”, but which were rarely allowed to become full-scale communal conflagrations.