Don't roll back ban on US visa to Modi, Kerry urged

Washington: "Updating" the US Secretary of State John Kerry on the ongoing cases of human rights violations against Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, the Coalition Against
Genocide (CAG) has urged him to continue the ban on American visa to the Gujarat Chief Minister. 

Manzoor Ghori of the CAG handed over a letter with the 'No roll back on Visa ban to Modi' request to Mr Kerry during an iftar hosted at the State Department here. 

He represented the CAG, a diverse spectrum of organisations and individuals in the United States and Canada that have come together in the wake of the 2002 Gujarat riots.  

'The US must take a moral lead when it comes to issues of gross human rights violations and Mr Modi's visa was revoked because of his role in the 2002 anti-minority massacres,' Ghori said in the letter. 

In a press release emailed to UNI, Dr Shaik Ubaid, a spokesman for the Coalition, said Secretary Kerry himself, as a Senator representing Massachusetts, had championed for a ban on visa to Mr Modi.  

In 2008, Kerry wrote a letter to the State Department urging the continuation of the visa ban, imposed three years earlier in 2005. 

Ghori's letter had annexed the reply the State Department had sent to Senator Kerry assuring him that the department was "extremely sensitive to your concerns and we are cognisant of the human rights abuses Mr Modi has committed." 

The State Department's communication also went on to say "..should we receive an (visa) application (from Mr Narendra Modi), we assure you (Mr Kerry) that it would be adjudicated in strict accordance with the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA), including Section 212(a)(2)(G) which states that 'any alien who, while serving as a foreign government official, was responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom, as defined in section 3 of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 is inadmissible." 

According to Dr Ubaid, CAG took the initiative to approach the US Secretary of State since BJP President Rajnath Singh during his visit to Washington, had pleaded with Members of Congress for an American visa to Modi.  

Only last week, doubts on the authenticity of a letter from Indian MPs to President Barack Obama against American visa to Modi had been set at rest.  

At the initiative of CAG, a leading US Forensic expert examined the letter and ruled that the signatures of the MPs on the letter were genuine and that it was not a cut and paste job.