The following
article is drawn from “Human Rights Watch”. Human Rights Watch an
independent organisation defending and protecting human rights which is drawing
attention from around the world. It is voicing for the victims, and holds the oppressor
for accountable for their crimes,its website says.
Here
is one such story of Gujart pogrom, of late Chief Minister Narendra
Modi who is much in the print and visual media on this subject has said to the EU that this
is an “Unfortunate” one.
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read further...........
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New Report Documents Complicity of the State Government
May 1,
2002
Related
Materials:
What happened in Gujarat was not a spontaneous uprising; it was a
carefully orchestrated attack against Muslims. The attacks were planned in
advance and organized with extensive participation of the police and state
government official.
Smita Narula, senior South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch.
(New
York) - State officials of Gujarat, India were directly involved in the
killings of hundreds of Muslims since February 27 and are now engineering a
massive cover-up of the state's role in the violence, Human Rights Watch
charged in a new report
released today
The
Indian parliament is scheduled today to debate the situation in Gujarat, and
may vote to censure the Indian government for its handling of the violence.
"What
happened in Gujarat was not a spontaneous uprising, it was a carefully
orchestrated attack against Muslims," said Smita Narula, senior South Asia
researcher for Human Rights Watch and author of the report. "The attacks
were planned in advance and organized with extensive participation of the
police and state government officials."
Under the
guise of offering assistance, some police officers led the victims directly
into the hands of their killers. Panicked phone calls made to the police, fire
brigades, and even ambulance services generally proved futile. Several
witnesses reported being told by police: "We have no orders to save
you."
Three
weeks after the initial attacks, Human Rights Watch visited Ahmedabad, a site
of large-scale destruction, murder, and several massacres, and spoke to both
Hindu and Muslim survivors of the attacks. The report also provides testimony
on retaliatory attacks against Hindus, which Human Rights Watch strongly
condemned.
More than
850 people have been killed in the Western state of Gujarat in the past two
months, most of them Muslims. Unofficial estimates have put the death toll as
high as 2,000. The violence began on February 27 after a Muslim mob in the town
of Godhra attacked and set fire to two carriages of a train carrying Hindu
activists. Fifty-eight people were killed.
Starting
February 28, 2002, a three-day retaliatory killing spree by Hindus left
hundreds dead and tens of thousands homeless and dispossessed. The looting and
burning of Muslim homes, businesses, and places of worship was also widespread.
Muslim girls and women were brutally raped. Mass graves have been dug
throughout the state. Gravediggers told Human Rights Watch that bodies keep
arriving, burnt and mutilated beyond recognition.
Burnt
Muslim shops and restaurants dot the main roads and highways in Ahmadabad. Neighbouring
Hindu establishments remain notably unscathed.
Between
February 28 and March 2, thousands of attackers descended on Muslim neighbourhoods,
clad in saffron scarves and khaki shorts, the signature uniform of Hindu
nationalist groups, and armed with swords, sophisticated explosives, and gas
cylinders. They were guided by voter lists and printouts of addresses of
Muslim-owned properties-information obtained from the local municipality. In
the weeks following the attacks, Hindu homes and businesses were also destroyed
in retaliatory attacks by Muslims.
The
groups most directly involved in the violence against Muslims include the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, VHP), the Bajrang Dal, the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that heads the
Gujarat state government. Collectively, they are known as the sangh parivar, or
family of Hindu nationalist organizations.
The
Gujarat state administration has been engaged in a massive cover-up of the
state's role in the massacres and that of the sangh parivar. Numerous police
reports filed by eyewitnesses after the attacks have specifically named local
VHP, BJP, and Bajrang Dal leaders as instigators or participants in the
violence. The police, reportedly under instructions from the state, face
continuous pressure not to arrest them or to reduce the severity of the charges
filed. Top police officials who sought to protect Muslims have been removed
from positions of command.
"This
is a crisis of impunity," said Narula. "If charges against members of
these groups are not investigated and prosecuted accordingly, violence may
continue to engulf the state, and may even spread to other parts of the
country."
The
violence in Gujarat has triggered national outrage and has been strongly
condemned by political parties, the National Human Rights Commission, the
Indian prime minister, and civil society at large. Both the Godhra massacre and
the attacks that ensued have been documented in meticulous detail by Indian
human rights and civil liberties groups and by the Indian press.
"After
two months of violence, the international community is now waking up and needs
to respond," said Narula.
Government
figures indicate that more than 98,000 people, an overwhelming majority of them
Muslim, are residing in more than one hundred relief camps throughout the
state. The state government has failed to provide adequate and timely humanitarian
assistance to internally displaced persons in Gujarat. Relief camps visited by
Human Rights Watch were in desperate need of more government and international
assistance. One camp with 6,000 residents was located on the site of a Muslim
graveyard. Residents were literally sleeping in the open, between the graves.
Assistance
from international humanitarian and United Nations agencies is urgently needed
for Hindus and Muslims in relief camps, Human Rights Watch said. It urged the
Indian government to actively seek the assistance of international agencies and
to invite United Nations human rights experts to investigate state and police
participation in the violence in Gujarat.
Human
Rights Watch also urged the international community to put pressure on the
Indian government to comply with international human rights and Indian
constitutional law and end impunity for orchestrated violence against Indian
minorities.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2002/04/29/india-gujarat-officials-took-part-anti-muslim-violence
