The claim of intelligence failure during the communal violence in Nuh has opened a can of worms in the Haryana administration with the Haryana home minister questioning the role of the state police’s intelligence wing, Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which reports to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

Home Minister Vij, who was stripped of the charge of the CID after a bone of contention between him and the CM over the control of the department in January 2020, has put a question mark over the government’s functioning by claiming he was informed about the communal violence in Nuh by a private person, not any official, as late as 3 pm on 31 July when the violent clashes broke out.

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This was hours after the communal clashes first erupted when mobs hurled stones at a Hindu religious procession and set over 100 vehicles on fire in the Muslim-dominated district of Nuh.

The home minister has announced an investigation into the questions being raised about the incident to ascertain who received the intelligence input (on the situation in Nuh), at what level it was received, and who was informed about it.

Vij said the state’s CID chief Alok Mittal, who reports to the CM, had not shared any intelligence input with the home department. He, however, maintained violence in Nuh was pre-planned as shots were fired from the hills, stones were collected on rooftops and barricades were erected to stop the Hindu religious procession.

Vij said that he as the state home minister was not informed about the communal tension in the run up to the procession and the subsequent violence that led to the death of six persons including two home guard personnel.

The minister claimed that until a private person from Nuh informed him about the attack on religious yatra by rioters, he had no idea what was happening in Nuh as “no police officer or any other government functionary” informed him.

He said when he called the director general of police (DGP), even the latter had no information about the violent clashes. The minister said he alerted the state’s police officers, including the additional DGP (law and order), the CM, Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal and additional Chief Secretary (Home) TVSN Prasad who was in Vaishno Devi.

Meanwhile, in an embarrassment to the state government, a video is going viral in which a CID inspector in Nuh can be seen claiming he had gathered and shared information with the higher ups in the department about the communal tension and possibility of the clash between Hindus leading the procession and Muslims in Nuh about seven to ten days before the clash. “If he (CID inspector) knew, then who did he inform about this,” Vij said, adding the video has been forwarded to the additional chief secretary, home, for investigation.