Hukum Singh alleging Hindus' migration from Kairana for votes: Owaisi

Muzaffarnagar: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has hit out at BJP leader Hukum Singh for alleging "migration" of some Hindu families from Kairana, asking him if it was so why he failed to control the situation despite being seven time MLA and presently MP from the same constituency.

"Hukum Singh had raised the migration issue just to get benefit in elections. Why he had not tried himself to control the 'situation,' as he was elected seven times as MLA and present Member of Parliament from the Kairana ?," Owaisi said last evening.

Hyderabad-based All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief was addressing an election meeting at Kairana in neighbouring Shamli district last evening as he kickstarted his party's UP poll campaign.

The party has released a list of 11 candidates, including Masiulla from Kairana constituency, for the first phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls next month.

Last year, Kairana grabbed attention when BJP MP Hukum Singh released a list of Hindu families which the MP claimed had left their homes and fled because of "threat and extortion by criminal elements belonging to a particular community."

Political parties, especially Congress and Samajwadi Party, had slammed BJP for trying to stoke communal tension in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the state Assembly elections.

Later in September, a probe team of the National Human Rights Commission had found that many families "migrated" due to threats pertaining to "increase in crime" and "deterioration" of law-and-order situation there.