Sunday, March 20 2005 12:04 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: The US has said that its decision to revoke visa to Chief Minister Narendra Modi was not based on any US Government findings about his responsibility for the Gujarat riots but the conclusions reached by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India in this regard.

US State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters that it was inaccurate to say that America has determined that Modi was behind the riots in Gujarat in 2002.

"The fact of the matter is that it was the Indians who investigated the riots and it was the Indian Government who determined that State institutions failed to act in a way that would prevent violence and would prevent religious persecution," he said in Washington yesterday (Mar 18, 2005) when asked whether the US investigated properly before taking the decision.

Yesterday, the US Embassy in New Delhi had said that it had revoked Modi's tourist/business visa and was also denying him a diplomatic visa.

"So this isn't a matter of the United States saying something happened or something didn't happen. It's a matter of the United States responding to a finding by the Indian NHRC pointing to comprehensive failure on the part of the State Government of Gujarat to control persistent violations of rights," he said.

"On the basis of those facts, we determined a couple of things. Number one, we determined that (on) an application for a diplomatic visa to come to the United States, the terms for issuing that visa under US law had not been met, and so we decided not to issue the visa, based on US law and based on findings of fact by the Indian National Commission," Ereli said.

"And number two, we determined that an existing visa that Mr Modi had - an existing tourist/ business visa - should be revoked under Section 212(a)(2)(G) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which says that any foreign Government official who is responsible for or directly carried out at any time particularly severe violations of religious freedom should not be eligible for a visa. So that's the background to those decisions."

When asked why the existing visa, which was cancelled, was given in the first place, Ereli said: "the visa was given before the events of 2002; that is my understanding.