Religious composition of the population (as per the 2001 census): 50% Hindus, 49% Muslims
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh: V.P. Singh, Congress Party, June 1980–July 1982
Moradabad (Uttar Pradesh), a then Muslim-majority town, experienced a gruesome riot on August 13, the day of the Muslim festival of Id-ul-Fitr. The rising prosperity of the Muslim population within the brassware industry (because of its exports to the Middle-East) had created deep resentment among Hindu middlemen, particularly those who were refugees from East Pakistan. Tensions had also increased between Valmikis (a sub-caste of Dalits) and Muslims after the kidnapping of a young Dalit girl during a marriage ceremony by four Muslim youths on March 1980. On August 13, eighty thousand Muslims had gathered at the city’s Idgah to offer prayers. A pig disrupted the ceremony, an incident in which the police refused to intervene, leading the Muslims to think that the police had deliberately sent the pig. Stones were thrown and the police reacted by firing indiscriminately, killing several people during their prayers. A riot followed in which 50 persons lost their lives, including young children. The same evening, a Muslim crowd attacked a police station, killing two policemen and setting fire to the building. On August 14, a rumor circulated that the Muslims had attacked an entire police platoon. The Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) retaliated by beating ten men to death. A curfew was imposed from August 13 to September 10. Muslims suffered from intimidation by the police and the PAC (which colluded with Hindu goondas). Due to local-police involvement in the violence, paramilitary forces had to be deployed. The local administration proved totally inefficient and irresponsible. The death tally from this riot is still debated, but the Government recognized and paid compensation for 400 deaths. A Muslim group put the death toll at 2,500 while other sources estimated that 1,500 to 2,000 persons had lost their lives in the violence. Further rioting broke out at the end of October, in which 14 persons died. After much hesitation, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi eventually visited the town in October in order to appease the Muslim population. Following the Moradabad riot, violence between the PAC and Muslims also flared up in Allahabad, in August, claiming around ten lives.
**(Akbar, 1980); ***(Gandhi, 1980); **(Secular Democracy, 09/1980); **(India Today, 30/11/1980); ***(Saberwal and M. Hasan, 1984: 209); ***(Engineer, 1984b: 39); ***(Ghosh, 1987: 221–224); ***(Chatterji, 1995: 38–38)