The UN freedom of religion investigator warned on Thursday that India risks more religious violence, like Gujarat's 2002 riots that killed 2,500 people, as delays to bring justice encouraged an atmosphere of impunity. “All these incidents continue to haunt the people affected by them and impunity emboldens forces of intolerance,” Asma Jahangir told a news conference as she finished off a tour of India. “Today there is a real risk that similar communal violence might happen again unless incitement to religious hatred and political exploitation of communal tensions are effectively prevented,” said Jahangir, who is a Pakistani rights activist. India's Constitution is secular. Hindus account for 80 percent of its billion-plus population, while Muslims account for about 13 percent, Christians less than 3 percent and minorities such as Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis the rest. Over the past two decades, India has suffered major religious riots between its different communities, like in the western state of Gujarat in 2002 when mainly Muslims were massacred by Hindu zealots. “Even today there is increasing ghettoization and isolation of Muslims in certain areas,” she said, referring to Gujarat state run by controversial Hindu militant leader Narendra Modi. But many of the perpetrators of religious riots have never been jailed amid a slow judicial system and what critics say is government inertia. Jahangir criticized the slowness of government inquiries into previous religious clashes. She said she was “astonished” that one government commission probing the demolition of a 16th century mosque in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya had received a 44th deadline extension. The demolition of Babri Masjid by Hindu extremists sparked the 1993 bombings in Mumbai which killed 257 people. Those attacks were blamed on Muslim gangsters. Jahangir criticized law enforcement authorities for being reluctant to act against perpetuators of religious violence. “At the same time, organized groups based on religious ideologies have unleashed the fear of mob violence in many parts of the country,” she said. In Orissa, where many churches were attacked around Christmas last year, she said there were credible reports that members of the Christian community had alerted authorities in advance. __
