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BBC, Monday, 1 April, 2002, 15:29 GMT 16:29
UK
Gujarat refugees 'scared to
return home'
By Adam Mynott
BBC South Asia Correspondent
There are more than 100 makeshift refugee camps dotted around the
state of Gujarat.
In some, many thousands of mainly Muslim refugees have been
sheltering for the past few weeks.
In others, just a handful of people are living under hastily
erected shelters, and in community halls and school buildings.
The hygiene and living conditions in most of the encampments are
appalling.
New attacks feared
The Gujarat state government is supplying some food and water.
Rice and vegetables are delivered to the camps, and the
inhabitants are given some protection by police from further
attacks.
But new outbreaks of violence over the past few days have caused
more refugees to seek shelter, and the wretched state of people
driven from their homes by hatred and fear belies the description
of "normalcy" given by the Chief Minister of Gujarat,
Narendra Modi, before the weekend.
"The few people who leave the camps in Ahmedabad to return
to their homes and shops are attacked," the convenor of a
camp in the Dudheshwar region of Ahmedabad, Inamul Haq, said.
"It is difficult for them to return to their normal lives -
they are scared to try to start again."
Continuing violence
The first meeting of the all-party state committee, headed by
Gujarat Governor SS Bhandari to look into the provision of help
in the makeshift camps has taken place, but no-one expects the
plight of the refugees to improve quickly.
The meeting discussed providing people with compensation to help
them rebuild their homes and businesses.
The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, is due to be at the
next meeting later this week, during a planned visit to the
state.
Chief Minister Narendra Modi has now said the camps can remain in
place as long as necessary, reversing an earlier statement that
he wanted them wound up as soon as possible.
The News International, April 02, 2002
Exposing India's real face
Inayatullah
With the riots (in various parts of Gujarat still going on), the
mask of sophistication slipped to show the ugly face of India.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's vision of the India is that of Hindu
nuclear power with Muslims accepted on the majority's terms. Thus
wrote Ramesh Thoker in International Herald Tribune. Ramesh is
vice-rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo.
Rafiq Zakria, known for his pro-India leanings, writing in
Hindustan Times has thus described continuing carnage in Gujarat:
Never before has this country witnessed such an organised
cleansing operation on such a colossal scale, both in physical
and material terms, as is taking place even new in Gujarat. And
this is the land that gave birth to Gandhi. Out of the pained
anguish my heart bleeds and weeps, for all through my public
life, I have struggled for Hindu-Muslim unity.
Zakria closes his column with a poem:
Burn, destroy, loot and kill
His people unashamedly shriek
They have created such communal barriers
That humanity itself is in shatters
Whom shall I then call out
When only murderers are out
The Chairman of India's leading housing finance firm, Deepak
Parekh "is bitter and angry" (reported The Hindu on
March 29) because of Gujarat and the way government -- both at
the State and the Centre, handled the violence. "What is a
government elected for?" asks Parekh and himself replies:
"If they cannot protect innocent lives then they should go.
What kind of government allows the killing of women and children?
I think the Home Minister and the Prime Minister should take
their share of the blame. It is a national failure. Every one
knows Godhra is a volatile city. The state government should have
investigated those involved instead of letting Vishwa Hindu
Parishad go out of hand. I belong to Gujarat and it pains me to
read in international and our papers that Gujaratis are barbaric
and indulging in genocide". Perhaps most revealing account
of the terrible killings and burning of Muslim men, women and
children and the destruction of their business and properties has
come from Balkrishnan Raj Gopal writing again in The Hindu on
March 27. Raj Gopal is the Director of MIT programme on human
rights and justice. Read on: The tragedy of Gujarat has deeply
scarred us. Burning Hindu women and children on the train, mobs
looting and pillaging Muslims' property, gang rapes of countless
Muslim women, systematic and planned programmes that slaughter
hundreds of innocent Muslims, a criminally complicit state
administration that stood by, watched and, by some accounts, even
participated, a complete failure to support the traumatised
Muslims by the state as well as civil society, and a shocking
partisanship by the state in awarding compensation. It is almost
too hard to do worse. There is a complete breakdown, not just of
order or Government but of humanity. Yet, there is no outrage
around the world. India is a mini-Rawanda where the natives are
simply expected to slaughter each other in their primeval fury.
The western media is openly anti-Muslim. It plays up the
brutality of the Islamists while ignoring the savagery of the
Sangh Parivar, even when they attack the Orissa legislature. For
its part, the national Government refuses to address a blatant
breakdown of constitutional order and takes refuge behind the
time-tested device of judicial inquiry. It is evident that the
killers will literally get away with it. If the mass killers of
the Balkans and Rwanda can be prosecuted internationally, why not
those of Gujarat? Under international law a government's failure
to ensure a right to remedy for human rights violations will
result in legal liability. This is guaranteed under the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which
India is a party. In addition, the VHP as an organisation as well
as Mr Modi and other senior officials in their individual
capacity can be sued in the US under the Alien Tort Statute for
civil damages. This law has been repeatedly used to pursue
dictators such as Radovan Kardazic, Marcos and others.
Some of Kuldip Nayar's observations after his recent visit to
Gujarat: I have never seen so many people so much bereft of hope.
I just listened to their harrowing tales, of murder, rape, people
burnt alive, looting and what not. After some time I said I could
not take it any more. Nearly one lac men, women and children are
living in inhuman conditions in what are called the refugee
camps. Even after four weeks, no FIR has been registered. No
official taken to task not even a policeman suspended. It was
really pogrom, well-planned and executed scheme...there were
unwritten instructions not to act against the rioters. (The
so-called peace loving India's Prime Minister has not bothered
even to visit the state so far). Kuldip concludes by posing a
question: "How do we stop people who are trying to establish
a Hindu Rashtra and demolish the secular ethos of a secular
country?"
What has Pakistan done about these horrific happenings to the
Muslims in India? Little except for a statement or two regretting
the tragedy perpetrated in the Gujarat State.
If even 20% of what is happening in Gujarat had taken place in
Pakistan one can only imagine how India would have launched an
unrelenting anti-Pakistan campaign to rub such crimes against
humanity into the international consciousness. As pointed out in
some of my earlier columns, Pakistan is grossly deficient in its
external publicity operations. Neither the Foreign Office nor the
Ministry of Information have the requisite funds or a programme
to project and promote Pakistan's points of view in various areas
of close concern to our national interests. Of course ground
reality matters but building of perceptions through the media and
other means are equally important. Even USA has a large budget
for pursuing what they call public diplomacy. India is miles
ahead of Pakistan in harnessing the international media to
influence governments and world opinion. Just one instance of
their remarkable inroads is how they have turned BBC into
practically the Bharat Broadcasting Corporation. It is time that
a strategic and comprehensive programme is taken up to safeguard
Pakistan's interests abroad and an effective and well-funded
external publicity apparatus is instituted.
The misfortune of the fact that Pakistan has to contend with a
difficult, duplicitous and a hostile big neighbour warrants the
realisation that we have to remain not only vigilant and alert
all the time to India's machinations but also use all possible
means to expose its true face and real designs. The world for
instance needs to be reminded that India pursued a double-faced
approach in the matter of Kashmir, Junagarh and Hyderabad and has
followed a ruthless policy in using force to suppress the
legitimate demands for self-determination, violating all
international codes of human rights.
The world is well aware of Israel's state terrorism but knows
very little about the genocidal operation launched through state
terrorism in occupied Kashmir. It is in fact India which has
turned the tables around and has been trying to haul up Pakistan
as a terrorist country. The Gujarat tragedy needs to be
highlighted and projected vigorously with imagination and skill
to establish that the world must take notice of the crimes
against humanity being committed by India so that steps are taken
to initiate proceedings against the deliberate ethnic cleansing
going on in its various parts as eloquently documented and
pointed out by Indians themselves and so graphically portrayed in
the recent accounts quoted above. It may be said as a counter to
my suggestion that Pakistan itself suffers from some of the evils
being condemned in the case of India. Correct but what has
happened here is not even a fraction of the brutal Indian state
terrorism. It needs to be added that unlike India no
fundamentalist party or group has ever come to hold the helms of
power in Pakistan during the last fifty years or so.
The writer is a Lahore-based columnist
The Hindu, April 02, 2002
Whither Gujarat?
Gujarat continues to be consumed by the cancer of communalism.
But the carnage did not happen spontaneously because of Godhra.
It was a slow deliberate campaign of ten years of hate filled
religious rhetoric inciting people to defend Hinduism. Hired
assassins, vicious, specially trained, armed mercenaries led the
mobs which massacred Muslims in Gujarat. Journalists, writers,
poets and decent people scream for help for the traumatised
victims, the remains of the pogrom. For a premeditated, cold
blooded pogrom it was.
Politics of hatred
The Centre has shown more anger and dismay over the storming of
the Orissa Assembly than they did when the news about the orgy of
murder and rape broke. They condemned and distanced themselves
from the Bhubaneswar stampede. But the criticism of the Gujarat
Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, was muted. Indeed he was
congratulated for bringing in the Army after 72 hours. The
Opposition has demanded the banning of the VHP and Bajrang Dal.
But why has no one raised the question of the very validity of
the BJP which has encouraged and built its base on the politics
of hatred and communalism? Who else can own responsibility for
the carnage? Having created the Frankenstein and nurtured it, how
can the very government which depends on fundamentalist fanatics
now control the monster of its own making? Is not the very
essence of democracy in danger?
As writers we are asked to restrain ourselves. But I thank God
for Star News and intrepid journalists who risked life and limb
to bring the horror of Gujarat before the country and before the
world. Only if our barbarity is totally exposed can we stop the
pretence that everything is back to normal. Even as I write this,
the camps are filled with Muslims in need. Over 50,000 victims
sit traumatised and glassy eyed unable to understand why they
deserved this. Hate filled mobs are still preventing Muslims from
collecting their belongings from their abandoned houses. They are
threatening relief workers and people they term pseudo
secularists. Pamphlets are being circulated demanding a total
boycott of Muslim shops, of selling to Muslims and of doing any
business whatsoever with them. Even as I write this, there are
reports from credible sources in Gujarat about the continuing
campaign of hatred. The call for the Final Solution. Drive them
out of the State, and then drive them out of this country. Do not
buy from Muslim shops. Do not sell to them. The pamphlet
concludes with a warning that the curse of Hanumanji will be on
your head if you fail to implement it. The curse of Ramchandraji
if you do not circulate it. Jai Sri Ram!
While Gujarat continues to burn with hatred, the allies of the
BJP look on. Theirs is not to do or die for obvious electoral
reasons. They cannot withdraw support even if every decent Indian
is appalled, ashamed and stricken by the holocaust that has been
perpetrated in the name of religion. In a situation like this, it
is imperative to introduce President's rule in Gujarat and ensure
that the Army remains in charge of security. It is a lunatic
fringe which supports the hate-filled politics of communalism.
Yet all of us must bear the burden of the guilt and shame which
has engulfed the country. And we deserve to be branded as
criminals because we have voted in a criminal government that has
shamed us. Nothing can take away the horror of Gujarat or wipe
out the trauma of the victims it created.
But it's about time we stood up to be counted and voiced our
protests. Are we a neutered nation that we refuse to act to
punish the perpetrators of the holocaust? Or has it become a
habit, this burning of brides, of Dalits, of Sikhs, of
missionaries, the murdering of girl children? The VHP and Bajrang
Dal must be declared terrorist organisations. But so must every
individual who stands up and spews hate, inciting people to kill
each other. And the BJP must be made accountable for its failure
to protect the victims of Gujarat and the continuing hate-filled
scenario.
`Final Solution'
Like Hitler's Germany, we cannot escape the guilt, the horror and
the eternal shame that will haunt us and generations of our
children when the history of this century is written. For it must
be reiterated and established beyond doubt, that unlike all the
other shameful outbreaks of religious bigotry, in the bloody
annals of our history, this was a pogrom, designed in meticulous
detail with pride, following Hitler's handbooks, seeking a Final
Solution and working systematically towards that end. Who will
conduct our Nuremberg trials? Or identify the Himmlers and SS
men, our home-grown Milosevic? We need to punish the murderers
and show the victims that we are on their side. That we consider
them our people. We need to go to Gujarat.
MARI MARCEL THEKAEKARA
The Hindu, Thursday, April 04, 2002
Violence erupts again on eve
of PM's Gujarat visit
By Manas Dasgupta
AHMEDABAD April 3. On the eve of the Prime Minister, Atal Behari
Vajpayee's visit to the riot-hit areas in Gujarat tomorrow, at
least nine persons were killed today in violent incidents. Six of
them were burnt alive in Abasana village in Ahmedabad district.
Some of the walled city areas in Ahmedabad were again brought
under an indefinite curfew after the city witnessed pitched
battles between the two groups in Gomtipur where two persons were
killed and nine injured in police firing. One person was killed
in the police firing in Umreth in central Gujarat. Besides the
mob attack, the police went berserk, beating up people in
Gomtipur and Vejalpur, severely injuring at least 80 persons.
The continued disturbances figured in the Assembly and the House
was adjourned sine die after it completed the remaining business
of the current budget session in the absence of the Opposition
members who were suspended earlier for disrupting the
proceedings.
With the gruesome incidents of burning people alive recurring on
the eve of the Prime Minister's visit, six members of a minority
family in Abasana village under the Detroj police station in
Ahmedabad district were killed when some miscreants set their
houses afire late on Tuesday night when the entire village was
fast asleep. While five persons died on the spot, one died of
injuries in hospital.
It was the first time after the three days of mayhem from
February 28 in the aftermath of the Godhra carnage that an
incident of burning people alive had occurred. The local
sarpanch, however, claimed that the miscreants had ransacked
houses belonging to the minorities and killed the people before
setting fire to the houses. He said the assailants, numbering
about 20, were outsiders and their identity was not known. They
had come armed and equipped with inflammable materials. The Chief
Minister, Narendra Modi, while condemning the Abasana attack said
that some persons seemed bent on creating disturbances and issued
a stern warning against disrupting peace.
In Umreth, one person was killed and two were injured when police
fired 16 rounds to disperse unruly mobs setting fire to houses
and shops for the third consecutive day defying the indefinite
curfew.
An indefinite curfew was also clamped in Vadali town in
Sabarkantha district following arson and group clashes. The
Ankleshwar town in Broach district was again brought under an
indefinite curfew following clashes.
The labour-dominated Gomtipur locality in Ahmedabad witnessed an
unprecedented mob fury despite being under curfew. After the
pitched battles on Tuesday, the mob regrouped and attacked slums
this afternoon and ransacked houses. Policemen, who arrived on
the scene, instead of helping the victims, beat them up. Even an
80-year-old woman, Chandbibi, was not spared while a local
journalist present on the spot covering the event also received
lathi blows. At least 60 persons were treated in hospital for
injuries inflicted by police.
In contrast in the Vejalpur locality, police raided some Hindu
residential areas and beat up the people there. Some of them were
paraded under the hot sun or made to walk on their knees.
"You people are harassing us by creating disturbances,'' the
policemen are reported to have told them.
The entire Opposition in the Assembly was suspended for the
remaining period of the current budget session after the Congress
members created an uproar demanding that they be allowed to move
an adjournment motion to discuss the communal riots.
Dawn, Thursday, April 04, 2002
5 Muslims burnt alive in India
ABASNA (India), April 3: Eight people died, including five who
were burnt to death, in renewed violence in Gujarat, two days
before Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was due to
visit the riot-torn western state.
The five who burnt to death, including two women, were all
Muslims, a police spokesman said.
The attack took place on Tuesday, when a mob torched three houses
in Abasna village on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, which has
witnessed sectarian clashes for the past month.
The charred bodies were found on Wednesday morning after
firefighters put out the blaze. Six other Muslims, including two
women, were admitted to hospital with serious burn injuries.
Local leader, Madar Singh, said the village of 1,500 people had
no history of tensions between Hindus and Muslims, who make up 25
per cent of the population.
"We have lived in harmony for more than 100 years and we
respect each others customs. It is outsiders who have done this.
We were helpless as we had all gone off to sleep," he said.
Police said they believed the crime was carried out by people
from a nearby village.
"A group of 15 to 20 people came to the village and burnt
the houses. The villagers are also not in the position to
identify them as it was late night," said a police official.
No arrests have yet been made.
Jumasha Ramzaan Shah, 55, caretaker of the village mosque, said
he and his family were petrified of further attacks and would
move away. "Three generations of our family have been
brought up in this village, but we no longer feel safe here. We
will go to... try to start a new life."
Another three people died on Wednesday, two of whom were shot by
police, as mobs rioted in the streets, police said.
Two people suffered stab wounds in clashes in Anand, the hub of
Gujarat's milk cooperative movement, they said, adding that 10
others, including three policemen, were injured.
The fresh fighting comes on the eve of a day-long on Thursday by
Vajpayee, who will get his first up-close look at the devastation
in Gujarat, the largest state governed by his party.
Vajpayee is due to visit the site of the Feb 27 train massacre in
Godhra and unveil a comprehensive package to help those who lost
their homes or businesses through arson.
RELIEF CAMPS: The prime minister will also tour displaced
resident relief camps, whose miserable conditions were denounced
in a report released on Wednesday by Amnesty International.
The London-based human rights group said police had not
adequately protected the camps, which have faced attacks
including stone-throwing and petrol bombs.
At the Vatwa camps in Ahmedabad "audio cassettes containing
the chants "Maro! Maro!" ("Kill! Kill!") have
been repeatedly played at night on loudspeakers to further
terrorize the camp dwellers", Amnesty said.
"Although the vast majority of the victims of the violence
belong to the Muslim community, reports indicate that the few
camps in Ahmedabad which are hosting victims from the majority
(Hindu) community... are receiving more visits from government
authorities and more regular rations," it said.
Amnesty called for an authority to protect the camps other than
Gujarat's police, which "failed to intervene during the
violence and sometimes even actively connived with the
attackers".
Some 50,000 people live in relief camps in Ahmedabad, according
to officials, but Amnesty said the figure could be as high as
75,000. Some 40,000 people live in similar camps elsewhere in the
state.
Amnesty criticized the Gujarat government for not ensuring a safe
environment for residents to return home.-AFP
THE TIMES OF INDIA, THURSDAY, APRIL 04,
2002 8:21:48 AM
Bloody carnage at Samras
village
AMIT MUKHERJEE
BASNA, Ahmedabad: The body of 22-year-old Noorjahan lay outside
her house, just next to the village temple, in the scorching sun.
The newlywed had been stabbed and then burnt by a mob.
"She was a like a daughter to all of us. We all were there
arranging for her wedding on January 26," says Madersinh
Solanki, the village sarpanch. But, surprisingly, none of the
villagers "actually saw" the culprits behind the
carnage which took place around Tuesday midnight, claiming five
lives.
The bodies of Noorjahan's father, brother and a cousin lay
alongside hers. Villagers said that about 15 'outsiders'
descended upon the village, located 80 km from Ahmedabad. Armed
with sharp weapons, they attacked members of Noorjahan's family
and her relatives.
Even her uncle Ismael, who lived a few houses away, wasn't
spared. His son Ibrahim, a retired Army jawan, stood stunned near
the body. Employed with ONGC in Kalol, he said, "They were
staying with me because of the riots but had come back a few days
back."
"We were sleeping... suddenly these people barged inside and
started butchering with scythes. They killed my husband... I do
not know what happened to my daughter-in-law," says
60-year-old Labhiben Ismail, who has sustained severe injuries
and has been admitted to Civil Hospital.
Six members of the family have been admitted to the Civil
Hospital in Ahmedabad. The five bodies were dumped inside their
house after it was set ablaze. The partially charred bodies were
recovered by the fire brigade which arrived nearly three hours
after the incident.
While most claim ignorance of the incident, stating they were all
fast asleep, their immediate neighbour Shankar Patel admitted to
being too scared to react. According to him, around 12:45 am, his
sleep was disturbed by the voice of Ismael, alerting his elder
brother Dawood.
After a few minutes Patel, realising something was wrong, got up
and walked across his courtyard and peeped across the common wall
separating his and Dawood's house. "There were about eight
men with faces covered with mufflers shouting at the occupants of
the house." Patel, 65, decided to stay put inside his house
as the killings took place next door.
With a population of 1,500, the Samras village had about 40
members of the minority community.
Ahmedabad police superintendent Vikas Sahay said, "We are
trying to get people to speak about the incident so that we can
make some arrests." But since the target was just one
family, the police iare also trying to investigate the angle of
enmity, Sahay told TNN.
The News International, April 04, 2002
Gujrat riots: AI says police connived with attackers
NEW DELHI: Tens of thousands of Indians made homeless by Hindu-Muslim riots in the western state of Gujarat endure harassment and lack adequate food, sanitation and medical care at relief camps, Amnesty International said Wednesday.
In a report on India's deadliest Hindu-Muslim communal strife in a decade, the London-based human rights organization called for an authority to protect the camps other than Gujarat's police, which "failed to intervene during the violence and sometimes even actively connived with the attackers."
More than 800 people--most of them Muslims--have died since riots broke out following a February 27 attack by a Muslim-led crowd on a train carrying Hindu activists. Amnesty, in research concluded in March, said at least 2,500 people were also missing. Some 50,000 people live in relief camps in Gujarat's capital Ahmedabad, according to officials, but Amnesty said the figure could be as high as 75,000.
Some 40,000 people live in similar camps elsewhere in the state. The rights group said police have not adequately protected the camps, which have faced attacks including stone-throwing and petrol bombs.
At the Vatwa camps in Ahmedabad "audio cassettes containing the chants "Maro! Maro!" ("Kill! Kill!") have been repeatedly played at night on loudspeakers to further terrorize the camp dwellers," Amnesty said.
"Although the vast majority of the victims of the violence belong to the Muslim community, reports indicate that the few camps in Ahmedabad which are hosting victims from the majority (Hindu) community ... are receiving more visits from government authorities and more regular rations," it said.
Amnesty said food at the camps was inadequate for the number of people and that sanitation was so poor that in some cases only one toilet was available for every 500 people. "Many of the survivors suffer not only from burns and other serious injuries, but also suffer mental trauma. Psychological help and expertise is reportedly unavailable." Ammesty criticized the Gujarat government, run by India's ruling Hindu-nationalist BJP party, for not ensuring a safe environment for residents to return home.
Ummahnews.com, April 06, 2002, 18:43:00
Hindu extremists target Muslim
schoolchildren in Gujarat
Vinay Menon for Hindustan Times
6 April 2002
The pogrom in Gujarat may be far from over. Intelligence collated
by the Gujarat Police reveals that "Hindu activists"
are conducting a sinister survey to identify students from rich,
educated Muslim families in some prominent schools here.
The objective, sources say, is to sustain the fear psychosis that
has overcome the minority community, resulting in a sharp drop in
the number of Muslim students attending school.
"By conducting the survey, these religious maniacs are
trying to force Muslim families to get their wards to leave these
schools for good. A kind of cleansing of the education system,
without spilling any blood," said a senior police officer.
The three schools targeted are Xavier's Loyola Hall, Diwan Ballu
Bhai and Ankur.
This is the second time since the riots began that a
"survey" like this has been conducted. On February 27
(a day before the riots began) meetings were reportedly held in
several pockets of Ahmedabad city to identify Muslim properties
and houses. This information was then passed on to mobs that
attacked the targets.
Several VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders have accusations registered
against them for leading these mobs - a charge both organisations
deny.
Intelligence inputs have not identified specific organisations
that are responsible for the latest 'survey', but the finger of
suspicion points in a familiar direction.
"Our report shows that school staff, bus drivers, and
auto-rickshaw drivers who ferry the children to school have been
asked to assist in leaking information about Muslim
students," said the police officer. "The idea this time
being not necessarily to attack the targets, but to scare the
children to the extent that it becomes difficult for them to
attend schools without fear of being attacked."
Collecting such information, sources say, is not a difficult task
for these 'surveyors' since they have popular support. "It
is not strange to see a schoolbus driver, who is also an activist
or relative of an activist of one of the many Hindu
organisations, assisting these goons in their job," the
officer said.
Information, it is reported, is also being collated by the same
group of Hindu activists on what remains of Muslim business
establishments across Gujarat.
Such behind-the-scenes legwork continues even as eight areas with
some minority presence in Ahmedabad city alone remain tense and
under curfew. "The Prime Minister's speech was an effort in
confidence building. But today, after more than 36 days of
rioting, we still cannot walk on the streets of the city like
free men, without fear of communal violence," said Anwar, a
resident of Daryapur.
The violence continued in Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujarat
into Friday. One person was stabbed to death and six others were
injured in the state.
Police opened fire to disperse mobs in Ahmedabad.
In Lunavada town, an accident between a rickshaw and a tractor
sparked off communal clashes. Night curfew continued to be in
force at many places in south, central and north Gujarat where
the situation was under control but tense.
DAWN, Sunday, April 07, 2002
'Modi tried to exploit riots'
By Jawed Naqvi
NEW DELHI, April 6: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, widely
suspected of conniving with Hindu mobs to massacre Muslim
civilians in a five-week-old and as yet unabated frenzied
violence against the minority community , had considered holding
snap polls to benefit from the communal polarization, the NDTV
channel said in an exclusive report on Saturday.
The channel's senior correspondent, Rajdeep Sardesai, said he had
clinching evidence that Modi probed the possibility of elections
way ahead of the polls ordinarily due only in February next year.
"NDTV now has clinching evidence that the Narendra Modi
government in Gujarat had serious plans for a snap poll right
after the recent riots in the state," Sardesai reported even
as news trickled in of five more deaths since the night in the
communal upsurge.
"In fact", the reporter said, "the BJP had done a
survey to find out whether they would gain votes in the current
situation. Till now Modi had been dismissing such reports as
canards spread by his opponents."
The document dated March 17 shows that the state BJP had gone
through an elaborate exercise to gauge the public mood and plan
for early elections with Modi personally supervising it.
Three senior BJP leaders were sent to each district with a
four-page questionnaire to assess whether the party workers felt
the situation was ripe for an election. The questions were: Will
early elections benefit the BJP? In which constituencies will
they benefit? Will be able to translate the current mood into
votes in an election? After the Godhra tragedy, what is the mood
among our workers? What impact are the riot-related arrests
having on our workers, and how will it affect elections?
"Top BJP sources in Gujarat said that the feedback was
positive, and at a meeting in Gandhinagar on March 18, Modi had
stated that he was in favour of a snap poll," Sardesai said.
When Modi was asked about snap poll, he initially denied his role
in this election exercise, and then threw the ball in Prime
Minister Vajpayee's court.
"The prime minister's word is final on this. I did not ask
him about the snap poll, I'm only focusing on relief operations
in the state. I have no role in this, the prime minister's word
is final," Modi said.
Indeed, it appears that only after a meeting with the prime
minister in Delhi two weeks ago, that Modi was made to abandon
his election plan, with Vajpayee making it clear that rebuilding
Gujarat should be the chief minister's top priority. Meanwhile,
three people were killed when police fired to disperse clashing
groups of Hindus and Muslims and two people were stabbed to death
in Ahmedabad. Authorities imposed an indefinite curfew in Watva
and Sabarmati areas of Ahmedabad city. Curfew has been clamped in
30 areas in the state.
Sporadic violence has continued even after the prime minister
made an anguished plea during visit to the state on Thursday to
end the bloodletting and "stop the poison of religious
violence."
Official estimates put the death toll at 825, but
non-governmental groups say it could be more than 2,000.
It seems while Modi planned to hold elections, reports from
Gujarat spoke of the threat of starvation that looms large in
violence-hit Ahmedabad where people are forced to live a life of
virtual imprisonment inside their respective colonies.
"I am still scared to go out of the colony," complained
Safi Bhai of Shah-e-Alam area, which the prime minister visited
two days ago. The forced isolation of the people has resulted in
acute food shortage in many areas.
The callousness of the BJP's Gujarat administration is taking its
toll on the prime minister's credibility with his own coalition
partners, who privately admit that the violence in Gujarat has
irretrievably damaged the national image, alienated many of them
from their Muslim constituency and resulted in a sharp drop in
foreign investment in the country.
"Earlier this week, when the Andhra Pradesh cabinet met in
Hyderabad, several ministers told Chief Minister Chandrababu
Naidu it was time the Telugu Desam Party consider severing its
links with the BJP," one report said.
The Washington Post, Monday, April 8, 2002;
Page A12
Sectarian Violence Haunts
Indian City
Hindu Militants Bar Muslims From Work
By Rama Lakshmi
AHMADABAD, India -- A month ago, Razak Usmanbhai watched mobs of
Hindu militants set fire to his Muslim neighborhood in religious
rioting that killed more than 700 people in western India. Weeks
later, he felt brave enough to go back to his workplace, the only
Muslim-owned car repair garage in a predominantly Hindu area.
As he made his way toward the garage, which he owned with a
friend, a group of Hindu youths wielding rocks and metal chains
descended on him. As they beat him up, he recalled recently, they
said: "Don't you know? Muslims are not allowed here
anymore."
"I can't return home, as it is a graveyard," said
Usmanbhai, 25, who now lives in a makeshift camp with 10,000
others who fled their ravaged neighborhoods. "Now they will
not allow me to reopen my garage either.
"I will go mad if I stay without work in this relief
camp," he said. "The biggest question now is: How do I
begin my life again?"
Since an attack by Muslims on a train in the town of Godhra on
Feb. 27 that killed 59 Hindus, triggering days of arson and
killing by rampaging Hindu mobs throughout the western state of
Gujarat, about 60,000 homeless Muslims in refugee camps across
this city have struggled to resume their lives. But many say they
are discovering that life here will never be the way it once was.
Two Muslims were killed here two weeks ago; one of them, the
husband of a Hindu woman, was stabbed to death and his body set
on fire.
"This madness has to stop," said Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee on Thursday, when he made his first visit to
Gujarat since the violence erupted. "Fire cannot be put out
by fire."
Though scattered attacks continue, carried out by Hindus and by
Muslims, the violence scarcely approaches the level of a few
weeks ago. But beneath the relative calm, the city remains
fearful and suspicious.
Relief workers and the Gujarat state government are forming joint
Hindu-Muslim "peace cadres" in every neighborhood to
hasten the process of returning Muslims to their homes. But many
of those in the camps have requested new land away from the
charred remains of their old homes.
Even Muslims whose houses are still habitable guard their
neighborhood with stones, sticks and gasoline bombs, saying that
each day brings new rumors and threats and each night carries the
fear of fresh attacks. Anonymous leaflets carrying inflammatory
threats against Muslims are slipped under doors.
One such flier calls on Hindus not to do business with Muslims or
hire them as workers. Relief workers said that while such fliers
have been distributed after every Hindu-Muslim riot in Gujarat,
this time the pressure by Hindu radical groups on employers has
made it more difficult for them to welcome Muslim workers back.
"When I called my Hindu boss, he said he had hired Hindu
workers in my place," said Mohammad Shafi, 18, who was one
of three Muslim tailors in a Hindu-run garment factory. "He
said some groups were threatening him not to take us back."
Bajrang Dal, a Hindu nationalist group whose members are accused
of attacking Muslims in Ahmadabad, denies having a hand in the
circulation of the fliers. But Haresh Bhatt, vice president of
the group, said the threat of economic boycott only shows
"general anger of the Hindus."
"The Muslims use the country's resources, so we expect them
to behave and not provoke Hindus," he said, pointing to the
Feb. 27 train attack. "This is only an economic boycott. It
could get worse if they don't change their ways."
Fearing more violence and discrimination, many Muslims are slowly
and quietly erasing any signs of their religious identity that
might make them vulnerable. Nameplates bearing Muslim names have
been removed from the doors of homes. Some women have stopped
wearing the black burqa, a full-length veil, when they go out to
buy vegetables. A few Muslims have even hung boards outside their
homes saying "Hindus Live Here." Some drivers of
auto-rickshaws have wiped from their vehicles images of minarets
and the Islamic crescent moon.
On a recent morning in the crowded Rakhyal neighborhood, which
houses 2,000 Muslim families, Salimbhai Sheikh took a used razor
blade and began the arduous task of scratching out the Arabic
couplets painted on the back of his auto-rickshaw.
"If we start work again, we will be instantly identified as
Muslims because of these verses," Sheikh explained.
"What do we do? We have to survive."
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