Rights group gets over lakh signatures on petition opposing Modi's US visit

JALANDHAR: An online petition urging Barack Obama-led US administration to cancel the White House invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for his role in the 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 Modi for a summit at the White House, effectively reversing the 2005 ban on his entry and visa to the country imposed by George W Bush administration.Obama's invitation was followed by US secretary of state John Kerry's visit to India who said they looked towards productive and fruitful summit.
SFJ used Facebook to garner grassroots support from the Americans and 1,00,000 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 Americans," SFJ legal adviser Gurpatwant Singh Pannun told TOI.
Reasoning why Obama should cancel the summit with Modi, the petition cites ?New York Times' report of April 16, which stated, "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 1,50,000 people were displaced."