Online petition urging US to cancel invitation to Modi crosses one lakh signatures JALANDHAR: An online petition urging Obama administration to cancel White House invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 2002 Massacre of Muslims has gathered over one lakh signatures, a minimum requirement for eliciting an official response. The petition was launched on July 21 by US based rights group Sikh For Justice (SFJ) after US invited Indian PM for a Summit at White House effectively reversing the 2005 ban on Modis entry and visa to United States imposed by Bush administration. Obamas invitation was followed by Secretary Kerrys visit to India who said US looked towards productive and fruitful summit. SFJ used Facebook to garner gross root support from the Americans and 100,000 threshold was achieved a week before the White House deadline of August 20. The overwhelming response to the petition indicates that strong anti-Modi sentiments exist among the American, said SFJ legal advisor Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. Reasoning why Obama should cancel summit with Modi, the petition cites New York Times April 16, 2014 report stating mobs of Hindus rampaged, raped, looted and killed in a spasm of violence that raged for more than two months. Mothers were skewered, children set afire and fathers hacked to pieces. About 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. Some 20,000 Muslim homes and businesses and 360 places of worship are destroyed, and roughly 150,000 people were displaced. Pannun said that now the petition had crossed the required threshold and now Obama administration would have to answer the Americans as to why a leader, who was earlier treated as human rights violator, was being hosted at White House. Obamas invitation to Indian PM is a deliberate violation of US laws which prohibit entry of officials like Modi who have committed gross human rights violations, added Pannun.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:11:14 +0000
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