Ahmedabad, Aug 05: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today hit back at his critics and NGOs making an issue out of the Best Bakery case judgement by writing a letter to President A P J Kalam. He urged him to direct "compilation of communal clashes" across the country since independence to "expose the vested interests" behind the campaign "to malign Gujarat". In an apparent reference to the outcry over Best Bakery verdict acquitting 21 accused, Modi said in his letter, "These groups (NGOs and Human Rights' bodies) do not even hesitate to point fingers at judiciary and even cast aspersions on a judicial commission headed by a retired judge of supreme court that is looking into all aspects of communal riots."
"They cannot even wait for the report," he said. Taking strong exception to "Gujarat being singled out" as far as communal violence is concerned, Modi said, "Group clashes and communal clashes have occurred in many parts of the country and Gujarat is no exception".
"Why do these so-called champions of human rights focus only on Gujarat? Why are they not so active where group clashes have attained alarming proportions in other states too?", he asked.
He alleged that the human rights groups were "all out to malign Gujarat's and the nation's image with the help of section of a media".
The Chief Minister urged Kalam to direct compilation of "number of registered cases of terrorist and extremist attacks, group clashes and communal violence, number of cases in which chargesheets were filed, number of those cases wherein the governments withdrew the cases even after filing of chargsheet and the acquittal rate".
Modi drew the President's attention to "equally serious issue of some external forces and non-government organisations trying to raise issues related to Gujarat at international forums", which he said, "were being done on the pretext of expressing concern at stray incidents in Gujarat".
Bureau Report