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The term 2002 Gujarat violence, also called as the "Gujarat Pogrom","Gujarat Genocide" and "Gujarat Massacre" refers to the violent incidents that took place in Gujarat state in India beginning February, 2002 as an aftermath of the Godhra Train Burning episode.The ruling BJP party maintained that this was in retaliation of the 27 February 2002 fire in which 58 Hindu Karsevaks died and 43 were injured in Godhra.

Officially 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were declared dead, 223 missing, 2548 injured, 919 widowed and 606 kids orphaned. By "unofficial" estimates more than 2000 people were killed, a majority of them Muslims. According to these sources, hundreds of thousands more were displaced from their homes between the end of February and May 2002 in Gujarat.

Build up of the rioting

The images from the train burning were broadcast in print as well as the electronic media, especially in local Gujarati language newspapers. The state government regarded the incident as a premeditated attack by Muslims on innocent women and children returning from a puja on the disputed site . The Chief Minister of the BJP ruled state, Narendra Modi ordered a state funeral for the deceased in the train burning incident. The timings of the arrival of the dead bodies to the state capital Ahmedabad were advertised on the radio may have contributed to a very large turnout of people in an already charged atmosphere. Modi blamed the Pakistani secret service Inter Services Intelligence behind the incident. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad issued a call for a peaceful statewide bandh on February 28, 2002. That bandh was later supported by the ruling BJP government. The first incidents of attacks on the minority Muslim community started at Ahmedabad, where Hindus began throwing stones at and later burned a Muslim housing complex known as Gulburg Society, and then spread elsewhere. The initial violence was instigated by a rumour that Muslims had kidnapped three girls from the trains. Thirty three towns of the state were severely affected and had to be placed under curfew at one point or another during this period.

Incidents

Most of the deaths were the result of Hindu mobs collectively attacking Muslims and their property primarily by arson. The Times wrote of one example where a family as well as their children “were surrounded in their car and drenched in petrol and set alight” and of another where a mob of 2,000 “threw paraffin at the houses and set them alight, trapping the families inside.”

The violence continued unabated with only one section of the population becoming the primary targets. Thirty three towns of the state were severely affected and had to be placed under curfew at one point or another during this period. Some incidents that became very well known are Naroda Patia, Gulbarg Society and Best Bakery in Ahmedabad.

Naroda Patia

Around One hundred fifty Muslims were killed, many of them women who were sexually assaulted by violent mobs. One of the witnesses stated before the Nanavati commission that that BJP leader Maya Kodnani, Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi and others had led mobs on February 28 last year in the Naroda-Patia area.

Gulbarg Society - Case of Ehsaan Jaffery

A high profile case involved an Ex-Congress MP who was surrounded by Hindu Mobs while many other Muslim residents in the area took shelter in his compound. Ehsaan was believed to have contacted the local police stations, MP's of the area as well as the Chief Minister Modi to save the people from the ever increasing mob. However, no police reinforcement had reached his place and few policemen present were ineffective and unwilling to control the violent mob."Eventually he along with fifty others were burnt to death.

Arundhati Roy, in her articles, made several claims about the details of the situation in Gujarat at the time , particularly regarding the murder of former Congress MP Iqbal Ehsaan Jaffery where she said that his daughters were raped and burnt by a mob which eventually killed at least 150 persons. BJP MP Balbir Punj, writing in Outlook India, has criticized her recounting of the events and pointed out several deliberate errors inserted by her. He mentions that Ehsaan Jaffery's daughters were not in Gujarat at the time of incidentFiddling With Facts As Gujarat Burns debunking many of her assertions.However, Punj did not deny the killing of 150 persons in this incident.

Best Bakery Incident

During the night of 1 March 2002, 14 people, including women and children, were killed. Despite repeated phone calls to the local police, a police vehicle reportedly only drove by once but none of the police officers took any steps to stop the attack, which lasted through the night.. The prime witness to the case, Zaheera Sheikh has been found guilty of lying to the court and has been sentenced to one year in prison. Human rights activist Teesta Setalvad also is believed to have induced her to fabricate accusations against the defendants. In fact, the prosecution stated that Sheikh and her mother may have demanded money from Setalvad to make statements in court .

Kausar Bano and Bilkis Bano

Kausar Bano was nine months into pregnancy when on February 28th 2002, 500 strong armed mob stormed into their house at Naroda Patia. Her womb was allegedly cut open with swords and the foetus was burnt along with herself and 7 other members of her family of 12.

Bilkis Yakoob Rasool was six month pregnant when, on March 3rd 2002, a mob attacked their house in Randhikpur village located in Dahod district and gang-raped her while killing 14 of her closest relatives. She was left for dead but she survived. During the trial for these crimes , she subsequently identified 20 of the accused including 6 policemen in an ongoing trial.

Retaliatory Attacks on Hindus

Attacks on Hindu Dalits by Muslim mobs in Danilimda, Modasa, Himmatnagar, Bharuch, Sindhi Market, Bhanderi Pole, and other localities in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat were perpetrated by muslim mobs. There was significant loss of life and property . and many Hindu Dalits were rendered homeless.

According to testifying witnesses, Muslims in the Amraiwadi area unfurled the Pakistani flag and raised pro-Pakistan slogans ten days after the Godhra riots. There were continued claims of Hindus being attacked in the area .This was accompanied by cries demanding that "Kaffirs" be killed and their houses emptied, said Ashok Patel, a BJP member and municipal corporator. He further claimed that riots were triggered after Muslims instigated them "with an intention of spreading fear".

In September 2002, at least 29 people were killed when suspected Islamic fundamentalist gunmen engaged in the Akshardham Temple attack in the city of Gandhinagar in Gujarat. The Pakistani ISI and Islamic terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba were accused of supporting the terrorists , but they have denied this accusation .

Role of Government and Police

The Modi led state government was reprimanded at various levels including the National Parliament, Supreme Court and the international fora. It was observed that the Gujarat government referred to the death of 58 people in the Godhra train episode as carnage while those post Godhra events, where at least 1000 perished were referred to as disturbances seen as an effort to pass on the subsequent deaths as a natural reaction to Godhra Train incident.

According to New York Times reporter Celia Dugger, witnesses were "dismayed by the lack of intervention from local police", who often "watched the events taking place and took no action against the attacks on Muslims and their property".

Role of Hindu Nationalist Organisations

Most independent reports have blamed the Sangh Parivar organisations to be responsible for orchestrating the riots.These organisations include the RSS,VHP,Bajrang Dal and affiliated orgainsations.The Hindutva forces are said to have launched a systematic demonisation of Muslims and to a lesser extent the Christians in Gujarat. The attack on the Muslims was a backlash against the terrorist attacks while attacks on Christians were justified by their intense proselytizing among dalits and tribals.

It was also reported in independent media that there are elements of economic boycott against the Muslim community in most areas of Gujarat. Muslims who were forced to move to the Relief camps are reported to have found it difficult to return and restart economic activity because of bad blood between them and the Hindu community as per the notions of action-reaction theory advanced by Modi and the RSS

The People's Union of Civil Liberties allege that pamphlets were in circulation by the Sangh Parivar which could have ignited the violence further.Peoples Union of Civil Liberties is a Indian Civil Rights group along the lines of the American Civil Liberties Union that enumerated the list of these alleged documents.

Response of the accused parties

The BJP government has defended the actions of Narendra Modi's administration against charges of 'genocide'. They said that the killing of 254 Hindus, mostly in police firing, indicates how the state authorities took effective steps to curb the violence . In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Home Affairs Sriprakash Jaiswal confirmed the Hindu death toll in the incident(s). He, in turn, accused the Congress for misrepresenting the extent of the riots as part of a political agenda.

BJP MP Balbir Punj has also responded to criticisms from the press and advocates such as Arundhati Roy by accusing them of hyperbole and sensationalising the riots as part of an agenda of what he calls 'defamation' and 'left wing anti-India propaganda' . In particular, Punj writes "She (Roy) terms Gujarat the “petri dish” of the Sangh parivar. The fact is that Godhra has been used as a crucible by the secular fundamentalists.","Loss of 900-odd innocent lives (both Hindus and Muslims) is definitely not a “genocide” of any one community", and "The secular pack is not only guilty of parading half-truths but also of condoning and inciting violence"

Indian National Human Rights Commission's Confidential Report

In its Proceedings of 1 April 2002, the Commission had set out its Preliminary Comments and Recommendations on the situation and sent a Confidential Report of the team of the Commission that visited Gujarat from 19-22 March 2002 to Gujarat government and Central Home Ministry.The Gujarat government in its reply did not provide its response to the Confidential report. Therefore, it was compelled to release the confidential report in its entirety and observed that nothing in the reports received in response "rebuts the presumption that the Modi adminstration failed in its duty to protect the rights of the people of Gujarat" by not exercising its jurisidiction over non-state players that may cause or facilitate the violation of human rights.

It further observed that "the violence in the State, which was initially claimed to have been brought under control in seventy two hours, persisted in varying degree for over two months, the toll in death and destruction rising with the passage of time despite the measures reportedly taken by the State Government".

The report claims "Failure of intelligence","Failure to take appropriate action","Pattern of arrests","Uneven handling of major cases" and "Distorted FIRs: ‘extraneous influences’, issue of transparency and integrity" as key factors in the incident(s).

There has been widespread public outrage, in particular, in respect of atrocities against women, including acts of rape, in respect of which FIRs were allegedly neither promptly nor accurately recorded, and the victims allegedly harassed and intimidated.

However, The National Commission for Women has accused organisations and the media of needlessly exaggerating the plight of women victims of the riotsWomen's groups decry NCW stand .

Aftermath

The Indian government's compensation policies offered 200,000 rupees for families with dead members on the train and 100,000 rupees for families who had relatives die in the riots. According to Celia Dugger of the New York Times, it has been called discriminatory by Muslims as all of the train burning victims were Hindus and about 75% of the riot victims were Muslims.

Controversies on the riots

Allegations of Complicity of the state machinery

Muslims in Ahmedabad alleged that there were elements of planning in the violence. Human Rights Watch alleges that they also had detailed precise knowledge about buildings and businesses held by members of the minority community while there were also cases where Hindus living in mixed neighbourhood were attacked and driven out of their homes. . Human Rights Watch also alleges that that the trucks carried quantities of gas cylinders. Rich homes of people belonging to the Muslim community and business establishments were first systematically looted, stripped down of all their valuables, then cooking gas was released from cylinders into the buildings for several minutes.

RB Sreekumar, who served as Gujarat's intelligence chief during the riots, made similar allegations. The Gujarat government issued a statement denying the charges, saying they had "no veracity".The Gujarat government claims that the charges were instigated because Mr Sreekumar was not promoted.

Telegraph reports of Indian Intelligence admitting of a "deliberate delay" in deployment of the army in riot affected areas in order to give a free hand to Hindu mobs seeking revenge for Godhra Train Burning.

The first inquiry panel headed by KG Shah limited its scope entirely to the Godhra Train Burning completely omitting the riots that followed it. Many of his judgements were overturned by the Supreme Court of India with the comment that "the finding of the judge... is not based on appreciation of evidence but on imagination."

Human Rights Watch further alleges that state enforcement and state machinery continues to "harrass and intimidate" key witnesses, NGOs, social activitists and lawyers who are fighting to seek justice for riot victims.

The state government was attacked by the media and certain NGOs for allegedly having done little towards relief and rehabilitation for the welfare of victims in setup and administration of relief camps. . The sanitary conditions and overall hygiene were reported to be "appalling" by the BBC, .

Gujarat government spokesperson Pandya responded by saying that the state was extending all possible help to the people in the camps .

In response to allegations of state involvement, Gujarat government spokesman, Bharat Pandya, told the BBC that the rioting was a spontaneous Hindu backlash fuelled by widespread anger against Muslims. He said "Hindus are frustrated over the role of Muslims in the on-going violence in Indian-administered Kashmir and other parts of India".

Refugees of the riots were supposedly being "harassed". The government justified some actions taken against these refugees saying that was necessary to ensure security .

Allegations of Media Bias

There have been several allegations of biased reporting of the riots by the media. Specifically, allegations have been made of deliberately loading the reports against Hindus and whitewashing the violence perpetrated by muslims.

Several newpaper columnists have lambasted media agencies for biased partisan reporting of the riots. The media, as well as several opinion makers, have been criticized for ignoring the causal connection between rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country and the resulting frustration of Hindus that led to the riots and falsely attacking Hindus as the sole cause and the sole peretrators of the violence.

Columnist such as Rajeev Srinivasan accused "the self-proclaimed 'intelligentsia' has been equally at fault: it has attempted to mislead the public with its biased and one-sided perorations".

Celia Dugger, a journalist with the New York Times, has written several articles on the riots. Her reporting of the 2002 Gujarat violence and other communal incidents has been criticized by several organizations , activists and blogging scholars as biased against Hindus .

In particular, Ramesh Nagaraj Rao, professor and chair of the Department of Communication Studies and Theatre at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia and author of several books regarding contemporary Hindu society claims that Dugger has reported dispropportionately by focussing on the Hindus to the exclusion of the violence perpetrated by muslims, including the Godhra Train Burning immediately preceding the riots. He also points out that U.S newspapers have misrepresente the death toll figures. He writes "(The editorial) does not mention that a train was burned and 57 people, all Hindus, and mostly women and children, were charred to death on February 27.Instead, they say it all began because of the “attempt by Hindu fanatics to build a temple!" When Hindus kill Muslims, The New York Times mentions both groups, with the stress being on Hindus who are supposedly doing the killing. When Muslims kill Hindus, Muslims are not mentioned. Many American readers don't go beyond the headlines, especially dealing with international affairs. The NYT, by skewing headlines against India's Hindu majority, seems to indicate to its readers that Hindus are to blame for all religious conflict in India."

References

2. Train Carrying Hindus Set Afire by Mob in India
3. Gujarat riot death toll revealed
4. BJP cites govt statistics to defend Modi. 254 Hindus, 790 Muslims killed in post-Godhra riots
11. ^ Dugger, Celia W. 200 Are Dead In 3-Day Riot Of Revenge In West India New York Times. New York, N.Y.:Mar 2, 2002. p. A1
12. Philp, Catherine Muslims burnt alive in Indian revenge riots The Times. London, England:Mar 1, 2002.
16. Why did Zaheera Sheikh have to lie?
17. Zaheera's allegations a pack of lies: Teesta Setalvad
18. Riots hit all classes, people of all faith
19. A home for long now just a death trap
20. With no relief, they turn to religious places for shelter
21. Pak flag was hoisted after Godhra carnage: witness
22. [http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/sep/28guj.htm Lashkar responsible for temple attack: Advani]
23. Gunmen Attack Hindu Temple in Gujarat
24. NSG commandos rush to Gandhinagar
25. ISI instigated Akshardham attack: Gujarat police
26. ^ Dugger, Celia W. Hindu Rioters Kill 60 Muslims in India New York Times. New York, N.Y.:Mar 1, 2002.
27. http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Religion-communalism/2002/gujarat-nhrc-submission.htm
28. BJP cites govt statistics to defend Modi
29. Fiddling With Facts As Gujarat Burns
30. http://nhrc.nic.in/guj_finalorder.htm
32. ^ Dugger, Celia W. Ahmedabad Journal - In India, a Child's Life Is Cheap Indeed New York Times. New York, N.Y.:Mar 7, 2002.
33. We have no orders to save you!
35. After the carnage: the predatory 'intelligentsia'
36. Why I Refuse to Condemn Post-Godhra Riots
37. Blaming the Hindu Victim: Manufacturing Consent for Barbarism
39. Media Coverage of the Events in Gujarat
40. Media Coverage of the Events in Gujarat

External links

• The violence of security
• The full story of Kauser Bano

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