Controversial ‘India Summit 2009’ cancelled

By Manzar Bilal, TwoCircles.net,

Patna: A programme in London called “India Summit 2009” that had Muslim objecting to it because it invited Gujarat’s Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been cancelled.

Summit was organized by Dow Jones Financial News and to be held in London on 19th and 20th May 2009. Controversial Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi is blamed for the anti-Muslim violence of 2002 in his state that saw thousands of killings. Many continue to live displaced lives.

Modi was refused visitor visa by the US government in 2005 and revoked his existing diplomatic visas under the International Religious Freedom Act.

It is to be noted that in 2005 when Modi was to visit the UK, British Indian Muslims had demanded the Foreign Office of Britain to declare him a persona non grata and refuse him visa. Their demand at that time was rejected, despite strong evidences of Modi’s crimes.

In this year, when news came that Modi has accepted an invitation to address “India Summit 2009” organized by Dow Jones Financial News in London in May 2009, Munaf Zeena of Council of Indian Muslims wrote a letter to British Home Secretary Ms Jacqui Smith in which he conveyed to the government the annoyance that British Indian Muslims feel to see a mass murderer to be welcomed to Britain.

Munaf Zeena argued in his letter to probe Modi for his crimes and reminded the British government to follow the international law which says that a person against whom there is evidence that he has committed international crimes is subject to arrest, trial and if found guilty, to punishment.

Now this controversial programme has been canceled, a Dow Jones representative informed TwoCircles.net that it was “due to business reasons.”