Crimestoppers UK and learnt about the Crimestoppers scheme, he saw it as a good opportunity to get the community involved in crime-fighting. Other areas around the UK also learned of Crimestoppers and took it up around this time but there was no national, co-ordinated approach. In 1985, PC Keith Blakelock was murdered during the riots at the Broadwater Farm Estate in London and the police appealed for information, stating that people knew who had been responsible but were frightened of coming forward. Michael Ashcroft (now Lord Ashcroft, KCMG and Chairman of the Trustees of Crimestoppers), a businessman, offered to provide the police
1985 Gujarat riots Dalits and Muslim neighborhoods in Ahmedabad and Vadodara. According to testimony from Dalits, members of the BJP legislative assembly who during the riots in 1981 had assaulted them gave them aid during the 1985 violence. The Congress and other Naxalite groups provided the Dalits with weapons, legal help and money. 1985 Gujarat riots The 1985 Gujarat riots began in February and lasted till October 1986, in the city of Ahmedabad. The violence caused an estimated death toll of 275, thousands of injuries and tens of thousands displaced. According to Asghar Ali Engineer, the riots were organized by the Bharatiya Janata