Muslim community leaders in Gujarat's Kheda said that over 1,000 Muslims boycotted voting in Gujarat assembly elections on Sunday.
They said the Muslim boycott was in protest to police's public flogging of Muslim men around two months ago.
However, election officials denied that there was any boycott call.
Muslim community leaders said all 1,400 Muslim voters of the total 3,700 voters in the Undhela village in Kheda's Matar taluka joined the protest and did not vote. Gujarat on Sunday voted in second phase of assembly elections in which 93 assembly seats went to polls.
"All Muslim voters from the village stayed away from the voting process as a mark of protest against the public flogging and the administration's refusal to punish the guilty. We gave a boycott call to express our anger at the one-sided action by the police. Till now, no policemen have been suspended for their misdeed," Maqbul Saiyad, a local Muslim leader from Undhela, claimed.
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However, Kheda district collector KL Bachani cited local poll officials and said there was no boycott call.
"As per the Returning Officer's report, no such incident has taken place and no one has approached us with any such issues. As per our record, 43 per cent of voters did turn up in Undhela to vote today," said Bachani.
Seven persons, including a policeman, were injured when stones were thrown at a Garba event in Kheda district in October by a group allegedly comprising members of the Muslim community. They had objected to holding the event near a mosque. Later, videos showing policemen in plain clothes beating some men, suspected to have thrown stones, with sticks in front of other villagers went viral on social media, causing an uproar.
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The counting of votes for all 182 Assembly constituencies in Gujarat- which went to polls in two phases on December 1 and 5- will be taken up on December 8.
(With PTI inputs)
