Rahul was right? Muzaffarnagar riot-hit say they were asked to join LeT

Nearly three months after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi courted controversy after claiming that Intelligence officers had told him about Pakistan’s ISI trying to recruit angry Muslim youth from Muzaffarnagar, a group of men living in the riot-hit district’s relief camps have reportedly told investigators that two imams had approached them to join a Lashkar-e-Toiba module.

The two clerics were arrested last month in Haryana. The men they approached reportedly turned witnesses and have given statements against them, according to The Indian Express .

The men, who recorded their statements in front of a magistrate in Patiala court in Delhi on Monday, are residents of relief camps in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli.

“They are believed to have told investigators that the two imams from Mewat – Hafeez Rashidi and Shahid – allegedly made numerous visits along with a senior LeT operative, currently on the run,” according to the report.

The men have reportedly told investigators that the clerics tried to radicalise them and were offered a good lifestyle and money for their families in return.

The two imams are reportedly linked to top Lashkar man Javed Baluchi.

The relief camps of Muzaffarnagar have remained a deeply politicised issue with the state government now standing accused of being unable not only to handle the growing humanitarian crisis in the camps where about 4,000 people still live but also of playing politics on which villages the victims would return to.

Over 60 people were killed in the Muzaffarnagar riots that broke out in August last year.

The Supreme Court had in December last year taken serious note of the deaths of about 40 children in the relief camps, directing the Akhilesh Yadav government to take remedial measures.