दंगा पीड़ितों के उदास चेहरे गंदी राजनीति की भेंट चढ़ गए हैं

Some people got a lot of fame but the riot victims did not get justice. After these six years, the victims have lost any hope for the same. 

Salim is 66 years old and his brother Nasim is 70. Salim now lives in shock, not talking to anyone. He Starts weeping all of a sudden. Nasim has lost his mental balance. Both belong to the Kawal village, which has earned a bad reputation for causing riots.

Salim is the father of the young man named Shahnawaz, who was murdered on the first day, while Naseem is the father of two youths who were accused of the murder of Gaurav and Sachin. Both Salim and Nasim are exhausted. Their four children are serving life imprisonment. Both Salim and Nasim remain secluded in the corners of their house. Their tears never stop.

This year has seen a lot of verdicts related to Muzaffarnagar riots. One verdict is related to the murder of Gaurav and Sachin. In this case, the four brothers of Shahnawaz was sentenced to life imprisonment. These four youths were jailed right after the riots. They could not get bail. Contrary to this case, the accused persons in the case of Shahnawaz were given a clean chit by the police. After a long legal battle, the accused persons were summoned in the court but within a month they are out on bail.

मानसिक संतुलन खो चुके नसीम का मानना है कि वो अपने बच्चों को कभी आज़ाद नही देख पाएंगे।

Recently, the father of Gaurav has surrendered before the court and has been sent to jail.

Salim, the father of Shahnawaz says, “I have never witnessed so much injustice in my entire life. My son was murdered and those who came to murder him were killed by the mob. My second son was going to Chennai and he had to return from Bellarshah. As soon as he returned, he was made criminal by the police and now he is serving the sentence. We fought for five years in the court but we were not heard anywhere and now the murderers of my son have got bail within 15 days.

The condition of Nasim, the elder brother of Salim, is worse. He keeps turning over a pile of papers. He talks very strangely and starts shouting sometimes. He says that he will not be able to see his sons lead a free life.

After more than 65 deaths in Muzaffarnagar riots, arson in hundreds of homes and feeing of thousands of people, if one wants to understand about the justice to the victims of the riot, one needs to look at the two similar incidents of Kaval in which accused persons were imprisoned for life in the first case whereas the police did not take any action in the second case. Even those who got arrested after five years of the incident secured bail in a fortnight.

शाहनवाज़ के अब्बु सलीम के मुताबिक़ उनके साथ बहुत बड़ा अन्याय हुआ है।

Muzaffarnagar advocate Rao Laik tells us the reason behind the difference in the execution of both the cases. He says, “The decisions in the Court depend on the testimony and evidence. The police do the job of collecting evidence. Now in some cases, the police are highly interested and in other cases, they are influenced by politics. This is what happened in the case of Kaval, where one side advocated vigorously while the other side could not argue on similar lines”.

This is not limited to Kaval. Because of the efficient legal support and inaction of the police, all the accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots are now acquitted. Rao Laik wonders that now all that remains is that the accused side should not file a defamation case against the victims.

A retired teacher from Kidwainagar Mohalla in Muzaffarnagar refuses to disclose the name, but he says that some of his friends tell him that the Hindu leaders have assured the accused from getting into any kind of trouble. Most of the cases which the police had filed on behalf of the state are being withdrawn by the police. And those cases which the victims had registered on their own are falling flat due to lack of evidence and hence the accused persons are being set free.

Almost all cases of Muzaffarnagar riots with serious charges have indeed been disposed of. Most of these cases have been compromised. A social worker in Muzaffarnagar states, “When peace resumed in the aftermath of the Muzaffarnagar riots, both groups became active in paperwork. The well-wishers of the accused persons formed several groups to save the people who were booked for the riots. Many temporary offices were formed to execute the action plan. The liberal Jats worked towards the favourable decision and others adhered to the politics of pressure group.

Shahzeb Khan of Khalapar tells us that during this phase, the Muslims started collecting funds. He says that after the riots, the Akhilesh Yadav-led government of Uttar Pradesh put more than one and a half dozen Muslims in the lucrative posts such as Minister of State and sent them to the community for damage control. Instead of helping the riot victims in Muzaffarnagar, most Muslim leaders of the ruling party were busy with bootlicking in Lucknow. According to Farhad Alam, a Samajwadi Party leader and former state vice-president of the Yuvjan Sabha, many times he saw a crowd of such people around SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. They used to ask them to go to Muzaffarnagar but their answer would be, “Your Highness, with what face do we go there!” After that many of them got red beacon govt vehicles, some got organization rank and some were made MLC.

Now, fingers are being pointed towards Azam Khan who did not visit the Muzaffarnagar victims either during the riots or even after that. National Secretary-General of Pasmanda Muslim Society, Anjum Ali Advocate says, “Since all the accused persons have been acquitted now, therefore leaders like Akhilesh Yadav and Azam Khan should answer for the acquittal because they had remained in power for four years after the Muzaffarnagar riots. The police made deliberations during Akhilesh’s tenure. Muslims should not complain about the BJP government because the BJP government has stood with their people. Objections and complaints should be raised against those Muslim and secular leaders who played politics with the Muslim votes. Why the cases were tried in the fast track courts? Who will answer now? After all, who caused such a huge riot? How did these people die? Did they commit suicide or set their own house on fire! ”

The role of some influential people associated with the local Muslim community and the outcome of most of the cases of Muzaffarnagar cannot be overlooked. It is shocking to know about some unrevealed facts which include the mention of some religious leaders. Only the victim’s family is not to be blamed for not giving testimony. Some people of their community pressurized, lured or inspired them. Most of them were people belonging to a particular party.

Maulana Musa Kasami, secretary of Jamiat Ulema Hind, believes that the whole matter is about proper legal representation. The names of 45 of the 69 accused persons of murder were not included in the main charge sheet. The case proceeded against 24. The witnesses turned hostile. The fact is that the victims are weak and poor people. Their courage is broken.

For example, two similar incidents lead to different results. Two persons from Sadarpur were killed at the turning of Mujheda in Meerapur while returning from the Mahapanchayat on that day. Cases are going against almost a dozens of people from Mujheda. Just after this incident, the accused persons named in the murder of Nadeem of the nearby village of Sikareda and Monu Qureshi of Meerapur’s Padao Chowk were acquitted.

Nadeem’s uncle now lives in Kethoda village while his father has moved to Tevada. Nadeem’s uncle Irshad, while sharing the agony, says, “Nadeem was married just 6 months before the riots and during the riots, we had to flee from the village at night while Nadeem got killed. His wife got a government job and monetary compensation as well. After this, she left her old in-laws. They had no other son. They live in a colony for riot victims near Tevda village. There is no money to buy food. Now in this situation, how would they fight the case? A local leader made them enter a compromise with the accused persons. How could they fight! Their son is no more, their house was destroyed, their daughter-in-law took away what the government gave them. They had neither strength nor courage.”

Advocate Bilkis Chaudhary, the Congress District President says that the government should have stood with the victim when the victims were helpless.

Statistics show that in most of the cases, the police did not recover even a single murder weapon and all the cases depended entirely on the testimony. It is well known that in Muzaffarnagar, the chests of strong witnesses have also been pierced.

Bilkis says, “Leaving aside the evidence and deliberation, during the riots, a certain group of people in the police were standing openly with one side – the attackers and shooting. These photographs were printed in the newspapers. There was little hope of deliberations from such police officials, but what did the representatives of the government and petty politicians do at that point of time?

The most affected in the Muzaffarnagar riots was the Budhana Vidhan Sabha. At that time, Nawazish Alam Khan of the Samajwadi Party was the MLA. The name of former MP Amir Alam, father of Navazish, was highly discussed at that time. He was accused of removing the DM and SSP through the political influence of Azam Khan.

Salim Ahmad of Shahpur tells us, “I don’t think he would have helped anybody because Nawazish Alam had kept his phone off during the whole riots. Muslim villages were being attacked but they did not come forward to help. Although Akram Khan of Shahpur also says, “The image of Amir Alam has never been communal. He was maligned under a conspiracy and he got trapped and so far he has not been able to get out of that duality”.

It is not just about Amir Alam but the resentment of many Muslim leaders is still seen in the local people. As Wajid Tyagi of Charathaval says, “Qadir Rana was giving one crore rupees and a bungalow to Chaudhary Ajit Singh to contest elections. Now he has to tell us that what efforts have been put in to give relief and justice to the riot victims?”

For example, a large colony of riot victims was established in Loi village on Shamli road from Budhana. These people came from villages like Fugana, Mohammadpur Raisingh and took shelter here. Jamiat Ulema Hind constructed colonies for them.

Muntazir from Loi Colony recalls a shocking event. He says, “The people of the local village do not allow our dead to be buried in their cemeteries. They say that we should buy our land, although initially, they were sympathetic to us, but now they consider us as second-class and look at us in a very resentful manner.”

The problem of the riot victims is not just about Loi, but also of the Jaula. The then VC of Aligarh Muslim University, Zameeruddin Shah announced to build a school for the riot victims in the village of Jaula. More than a crore has been spent to build schools here. The land was donated by a farmer and the school was built. Right now the children of the rich are studying in the school. According to the former District Panchayat member of the district, Mehboob Ali, the school has high fees and the children of the riot victims cannot afford it. Meharban, a riot victim says, “We were poor in the villages of the Jat and we are poor here also. People helped us a lot but we did not get justice. We have no complaints with anyone. Allah will take revenge”.
 
The first decision in the Muzaffarnagar riots was in the gang rape cases. Police had already put the final report in most of the cases. Some women riot victims in Kairana’s Malkapur camp had said to have been gang-raped. Seven such women had filed the case. They were all from the Muslim community. One of them, Fatima (name changed) from Fugana village was gang-raped by four men. The rapists were from the same village. Fatima claimed that there were attempts to intimidate and lure her family.

Due to the efforts of Rehana Adeeb, the chairperson of Astitva, a social organization, all these women came forward to register the case. She says, “The first thing is that the Shamli district court is still in Muzaffarnagar. The accused go to court by car. The travel is more hurtful to the women victims. They are constantly threatened and their families are lured.” Their community too could not give them courage. The victims believe that they did not get the support as expected. On the other hand, the riot accused has not been deserted by their community. Their entire community stood with them. The Muzaffarnagar MP Sanjeev Balian reached out to refugees living in Shahpur Basti who were living there after the violence in village Kutba and requested them to return to the village.

Muntiaz Saifi from Shahpur, which is a riot-affected hamlet says, “He came and presented salutations and sat down near the feet of the elderly. He regretted the loss in the riots and requested to return to the village. We understood his intentions, he wanted to get results from the case. We did not go back but now we do not even want to fight the case. What will we achieve by fighting! “

Courtesy: Two Circle

The post No End to Suffering of Muzzafarnagar Riot Victims; Justice Remains Elusive appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The report was released by the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), an amalgam of research and advocacy organisations based in Srinagar, and the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), an advocacy seeking to end involuntary and enforced disappearances in Kashmir, in February 2019. Torture qualifies as a war crime as per the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Geneva Conventions.

The report, endorsed by former United Nations (UN) special rapporteur Juan E Mendez, accuses the Indian state of violating international human rights law by practicing torture against civilians, destroying property such as homes, and causing widespread psychological distress.

“For the worldwide struggle against torture, this report will constitute a landmark,” Mendez wrote. “It is to be hoped that it will be an example to other civil society organizations in India and in other countries, as a model for dispassionate and precise language, even when discussing tremendously tragic suffering.”

Jammu and Kashmir is considered among the most militarised regions in the world, indicative of an alarming human rights situation. JKCCS estimates that 650,000-750,000 Indian troops are present in the state; Ajai Shukla, a defence expert, contested those numbers in July 2018, estimating the number to be 470,000 instead.

Another 38,000 were deployed in early August 2019, bringing the presence between 700,000 and 800,000–more than one armed forces personnel per 15 civilians, as per JKCCS’s figures.

On August 29, 2019, the BBC reported that civilians in Kashmir had complained of being tortured by the Indian security forces since the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019.

The JKCCS report relates to the period between 1990 and 2017. Its release comes at a time when Union home minister Amit Shah, on August 28, 2019, suggested that the police do away with the age-old third-degree torture and adopt new, more scientific methods of investigation.

However, the report has received no coverage in the mainstream Indian media. The two largest newpapers in India, The Times of India in English and the Hindi Dainik Jagran, with a combined readership of nearly 90 million, have not covered the report to date, despite reporting on allegations of torture carried out by the Indian security forces and publishing more than 3,000 stories on Jammu and Kashmir this year, an IndiaSpend analysis has shown.

The home ministry, The Times of India, and Dainik Jagran did not respond to emails for comment sent on August 25 and 29, 2019. This story will be updated when they do.

Some experts view the report as indicative of a general disregard for Kashmiris’ human rights, particularly since Article 370 was removed. “Given what has happened since August 5 [the abrogation of Article 370], what rights? What humans? The way they’re being treated, the very idea of human rights for the people of Kashmir is an absurd farce,” said Nitasha Kaul, associate professor of politics and international relations, University of Westminster, London. She is of Kashmiri origin.

Others said the report must be seen in the perspective of the situation across India.

“I don’t think this [torture] is a special practice of the Indian state in Kashmir,” Manoj Joshi, distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think-tank, told IndiaSpend. “It is well known that torture is widely used by police forces across the country. Of course, it does not serve the interests of the Indian state. To the contrary, it negatively impacts it.”

Key findings
Among the report’s findings: 27 of the 432 cases studied (6.25%) made it to the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), of which 20 received favourable recommendations; in 2017, the state government accepted seven of the 44 compensation recommendations the commission made. The government has accepted 58 of the 229 recommendations (25%) made by the commission since 2009.

The report alleges that armed forces in Kashmir are responsible for the destruction of civilian property and life, alongside causing significant psychological distress due to the practice of torture.

Purposes
In 1993, Mohammad Shafi Hajam, a barber from Anantnag, was questioned by armed forces regarding the whereabouts of weapons, the report documents. Despite initially denying any knowledge, following extensive torture, he revealed the location to be a ditch near his shop. The next day, the army made all surrounding inhabitants including Hajam enter the ditch, filled with human refuse, to find the weapons. Upon not finding anything, an army officer slammed Hajam’s head onto a rock, causing him to lose a few teeth. He was subsequently taken back to the camp and continued to be tortured, the report added.

Based on the responses of each case, the report found three major reasons why people were tortured: as a punitive measure (50 victims, 12% of the total), a method to gain information, mainly about militants (118 victims, or 27%), and a means to elicit confessions (11 victims).

Some victims said they provided false information to their interrogators just for respite.

Methods

One of the victims documented by the report, from Anantnag, said he was doused in petrol and set on fire. Another, Bashir Ahmad, claimed that boiling water was poured on his back.

Torture methods documented in the report include physical brutalisation, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, starvation; and being forced to remain in uncomfortable positions such as aeroplane posture, burned, coerced to ingest contaminated substances and get in unhygienic contact with animals. All of these count as war crimes as per ICC rulings.

Some 326 of the 432 victims studied reported being beaten by sticks, rods and belts. Another 93 people claimed that they were physically brutalised, including the smashing of glass bottles on their faces. One person reported being kicked down a hill.

At least 80 victims had been tortured during cordon and search operations (CASOs), which have been globally condemned by groups such as Human Rights Watch (here) and Amnesty International (here).

Civilian victims
Nearly 70% or 301 of the total victims studied were civilians, of which 258 had no political affiliations. Twenty were political activists, six were students, three journalists, two human rights activists, and 12 associated with the Jamaat-e-Islami, a politico-religious activist group banned by the government in March 2019 for its “close touch” with militant outfits.

Civilians were mainly targeted for information regarding militants, or in response to militant activity in neighbouring areas, the report said.

Nearly 119 victims were militants (28%) and five were former militants (1%). Two members of the Jammu and Kashmir Police were found to have been tortured.

In the cases where militants were tortured, the report stated that most of the cases of arrest were not registered with the local police on the day of arrest. Doing so is a requirement under point six of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).

In 32 cases, the report found that the families of the victims were targeted in addition to the victim. Article 3 of the Geneva Convention states that those “taking no active part in the hostilities” must be treated “humanely,” specifically prohibiting “violence to life and person” and “outrages upon personal dignity”. The principle is also mentioned in the ICC guidelines regarding war crimes.

Further, 27 of the 432 victims studied were minors, of which one was female. From a total of 1,086 juvenile detentions from September 2013 to April 2017, 623 (57%) were for pelting stones, the report found.

Lasting effects on victims
At least 222 victims of the total 432 (51.4%) reported health complications from being tortured–209 reported chronic health problems, frequent aches, fatigue and sexual impotency; 49 reported acute chronic ailments such as cardiac issues, nephrological problems, internal organ injuries and amputations. All 222 victims said they had been bearing the costs of healthcare by themselves, without any compensation or support.

Sixteen victims reported dislocated joints, in addition to 15 respondents who had suffered fractures. Three people had to undergo amputations after being tortured. One victim, Mohammad Qalandar Khatana, said that he was forced to eat the cut flesh of his buttocks, after which his legs were broken. He wasn’t provided with any medical assistance. While imprisoned, his legs got infected by maggots, following which they had to be amputated.

At least 49 (11.34%) victims died during or after torture, of which 40 died due to injuries sustained due to being tortured, such as ruptured lungs, and a perforated liver and intestines. Eight were shot dead after being tortured, whereas another one was poisoned.

Around 42 (18.9%) victims suffered from various psychological disorders after being tortured, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, insomnia, and dementia, according to the report.

Earlier, a mental health survey undertaken in December 2015 by Medecin Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) said that 19% of Kashmir’s population showed several symptoms of PTSD; 45% of the population, or 1.8 million adults, in the Kashmir Valley suffered from significant mental distress; 1.6 million or 41% exhibited symptoms of severe depression.

Victims often poor

Aside from the physical and mental impacts of torture, a significant facet of torture is its economic brutality, as the victims are often underprivileged, the report said. The wife of one victim, Din Mohammad, met the initial costs of her husband’s treatment by begging for money in 1999.

Many victims it documented were manual labourers, who were unable to resume their occupation due to the significant physical distress caused by torture, the report said. At least 31 victims reported an inability to perform any physically exhausting labour; almost all of them previously farmers or manual labourers.

At least 36 victims (8.3%) and their families lived in abject poverty because of the loss of livelihood or the death of the breadwinner of the family, the report said. Four families have subsequently died due to their dire situation.

Twenty five cases also involved the payment of bribes ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 2 lakh to various agencies to secure the release of their loved ones, or to protect families from relentless harassment.

Report ignored by mainstream Indian media
In February 2017, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) compiled a report stating the necessity to “control” the mosque, madrassa, print and TV media to enact effective “perception management”, The Indian Express reported. The report listed TV channels and newspapers as pro- and anti-India, recommending that the former be promoted while the latter “discouraged”.

The Indian Army’s doctrine on sub-conventional operations of 2006 notes that such operations are “essentially information campaigns”, emphasising the importance of the government, the security forces and the civilian population understanding the campaign in the “correct perspective”. This makes the role of the media critical.

The JKCCS report acknowledged that the primary challenge while researching torture is under-reporting, due to the reluctance of victims to reveal details, and the political hurdles faced by journalists. The Indian government has repeatedly withheld permission from several journalists who wished to work in Kashmir; Greater Kashmir reported on one such prominent instance in August 2019.

“The Indian government is interested in perception-management, not in actually finding a solution, because the dominant lens with which they see Kashmir is an Islamophobic one, and because their own idea of India is to capture the state and convert it into a Hindu nation, in line with the Hindutva ideology,” said Kaul.

“To call it a perception-management strategy is perhaps to overstate it, because the emperor has no clothes. The situation is clear to everyone globally, outside the hypernationalist Indian televisual bubble. India’s narrative has no ground to stand on anymore,” Kaul added.

As we said, despite the report on torture being the first ever comprehensive documentation on the subject, the dominant media in India have not covered it to date.

The Times of India, the largest English-language newspaper of the country with a readership of 15.2 million, despite publishing one story almost every two days on the state, did not cover the report. In 109 stories covering Jammu and Kashmir as listed on their website, over eight months between the start of 2019 and August 27, the word ‘torture’ was mentioned only four times. The word appeared four times in a single story, which covered the Indian Army denouncing allegations of torture and excesses committed by the Indian security forces by Shehla Rashid, member of the Jammu and Kashmir’s People’s Movement, as “baseless” and “unverified”.

Similarly, Dainik Jagran, the largest newspaper in India with a readership of 73.6 million, published 3,296 stories on Jammu and Kashmir from January 2019 to late August 2019–almost 14 stories per day, but did not cover the report released on torture. However, it also covered Shehla Rashid’s allegations, on August 19 and August 20, and the case filed against her for doing so.  

Coverage of Jammu and Kashmir, per se, spiked during August 2019, the month in which the abrogation of Article 370 was announced, for both these newspapers, our analysis shows.

“In all of this, the signs of optimism and prospects for peace is the humanity and resilience of the Kashmiri people. Prospects for peace can only come from millions of people who are going to read, think, know and understand what cannot and must not happen,” Kaul said.

No government action on previous reports
In June 2018, after protests erupted following the killing of Burhan Wani, a 22-year-old commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) terrorist outfit, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) at the United Nations released a report on the human rights situation in Kashmir for the first time.

The security forces had killed 130-145 civilians between July 2016 and March 2018, in addition to 16-20 killed by militant groups, the report noted. In a subsequent report published in July 2019, the UN body reported that the security forces had blinded 1,253 people with the use of metal pellets from mid-2016 to the end of 2018. The government had detained over 1,000 people between March 2016 and August 2017 under the Public Safety Act (PSA).

The OHCHR said it had asked India for access to Kashmir to monitor the human rights situation, but the government had unconditionally refused.

“India has not allowed international monitors since it views Kashmir as an internal issue,” Joshi said, adding, “Second, it would be embarrassed by the findings.”

Some 4,000 people have been detained in the state since the abrogation of Article 370, The Hindu reported on August 18, 2019. The Public Safety Act violates several clauses of international human rights law, an Amnesty International report of June 2019 showed.

“Where else do you have protestors being blinded by pellet guns, or an entire region being collectively punished by a siege? They [the Indian State] are doing it [blocking international monitors] because they can,” said Kaul.

Earlier, in 2016, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a US-based human rights NGO that documents human rights violations around the world, reported that the Indian state had obstructed access to medical care for protestors, prevented medical officials from treating injured protestors, and intimidated doctors and patients at the hospital. Security forces had destroyed 200 ambulances in the same year, another JKCCS report had found.

Denying civilians access to humanitarian aid or attacking humanitarian workers is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and a war crime as per the guidelines of the International Criminal Court.

There existed at least 2,700 unknown, unmarked graves containing more than 2,943 bodies across 55 villages between November 2006 and November 2009, a report by the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir (IPTK) documented, including photographic evidence. In November 2017, the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) reportedly ordered a DNA probe into 2,080 unmarked graves in the districts of Poonch and Rajouri, but no information is available on any follow up. 

(Mehta, a second-year undergraduate at the University of Chicago, is an intern at IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

The post New Report Cites 432 Torture Cases In Kashmir From 1990-2017, 70% Victims Civilians appeared first on SabrangIndia.

We lost our children and now we are facing the police case; this is how the poor are treated in this country, they said.

Image for representational use only.Image Courtesy : The Hindu

New Delhi: Instead of holding the system and health officials accountable for failing to prevent and control the ongoing suspected Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) outbreak, which has claimed over 150 children’s lives, the Bihar Police have registered an FIR (first information report) against 19 people for staging a protest by blocking traffic on the Muzaffarpur-Hajipur highway on June 18. After seven children died of the brain fever in the past 14 days in Harvanshpur village in Vaishali district of the state, the protesters were demanding water tankers for their village.

The protesters have been booked under sections 147, 148 and 149, 188, 283, 353 and 504 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Those against whom the case has been slapped also include parents whose children have died of the suspected AES.

“Our two kids (aged seven and two years) succumbed to the disease (suspected AES). The elder one was playing. Suddenly, he began vomiting. I asked him to take rest. After finishing work, when I went to the room where he was sleeping to check him, he was unconscious. His body had stiffened and eyes were abnormal. We immediately took him on a motorbike to a doctor in Lalganj town. The doctor referred him to a government hospital in Hajipur. After initial treatment there, he was once again referred to PMCH (Patna Medical College and Hospital) in Patna. But we took them to Muzaffarpur’s SKMCH (Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital – which has emerged as the epicenter of the children deaths) as it was convenient for us. He died there at 3 pm. When we returned with his dead body, the younger one (who was two-year-old) also fell ill. Leaving the elder son’s dead body, we took him to the same government hospital in Hajipur that referred him too to the PMCH where she died at 12 midnight,” the wife of Chhatri Sahni, a resident of Pachiyari Tola at Harvashpur village in Vaishali district, told NewsClick.

After the death of their two children, they were so afraid that they have sent their rest two children to their paternal parents’ place so that they don’t contract any infection and fall ill.

Rajesh Sahni’s daughter Rupa also has died during this outbreak. “It was five in the evening when Rupa felt unwell. She was having continuous seizures. We rushed her to medical (SKMCH) where she died within 24 hours. We did not take her body to our home fearing that infection may spread to other children. We performed her burial at a crematorium located a few kilometers away from the hospital,” he said adding that he too has sent their children to his relatives’ place to ensure safety.

He said after death of seven children in the village, when the residents protested against the district administration and the government to fulfil their longstanding demand for clean water, they were booked. “We protested demanding tankers of clean water, but false cases were slapped against us. Even those who are paralysed and cannot move have also been booked. We hit roads because the administration had not been listening to us even after the death of our children. We want to live; we don’t want our children to die. We don’t have water in our village. Our demand is legitimate,” Sahni said.

The government and its administration “woke up” after the protest – he claimed – and began a door-to-door check-up of children in Harvanshpur.

Another accused, Ramdev Sahni from the same village, lost his two-year-old daughter to AES. “I have also been named in the FIR. Is demanding clean water to drink a crime? The police action proves that being poor is a curse. It is also a warning us against raising voice even it is related to your life and death. This is how poor in this country are treated by governments,” he said.

When asked about reasons behind the police action, Vaishali Superintendent of Police Dr Manavjit Singh Dhillon told NewsClick, “The first information report was lodged against the 19 people after they blocked the busy Muzaffarpur-Hajipur highway for four hours on June 18. It resulted into traffic chaos and an ambulance carrying a child, who had suffered injuries in an accident, was not given way, which resulted in his death. In addition, the protesters were also attacking motorists.”

“In addition to 19 named accused, 30 others are unnamed. There have been no arrest so far. Investigations are on as it is done in first information reports. We are also making efforts to identify unnamed accused,” he said.

But the accused have denied the charges of rioting and assault. “Yes, we had blocked the road but it was a peaceful protest. We don’t know about the allegation of death of the child as being claimed by the SP,” they added.

A large number of men against whom FIR has been registered are so to have fled the village, fearing arrest and police crackdown. They said the police come to the village in search of people named in the FIR. As a result, all those who have been “implicated in the false case” have fled the village fearing arrest and crackdown.

However, both the SP and Bhagwanpur Police Station SHO Sanjay Kumar denied that the police are conducting raids. “No raid is being conducted. Since the death of the children; the village is witnessing visits of leaders belonging to political parties. And therefore, the police have been deployed. Even I keep going to the village but that is regular patrol, not to arrest anyone,” said the SHO.

Asked if the accused also include those who have lost their children to the AES, he said, “Yes, two of them are named in the FIR. But we are sensible enough and have sympathy for them. We are also treating them as people in distress, not as hardened criminals.”

Meanwhile, Bihar continues to battle AES. With another death on Tuesday morning, according to the state’s Health Department, the toll has reached 131 in Muzaffarpur district. The death was reported from government-run SKMCH. A total of 111 deaths have been reported from government-run SKMCH and 20 from Kejriwal Hospital. The two hospitals have admitted a total of 600 brain fever patients so far this month.

A total of 150 children have died in 20 districts of the state since June 1. Over 700 children have been afflicted by AES.

Courtesy: News Click

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Credit:AFP, Sam Panthaky

UPDATE:

Today, June 17 is the day that final judgement will be delivered in the Gulberg Society Massacre. Witness Survivors have filed detailed Written Arguments making a strong case for life sentence. The advocates for the survivors, backed by Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) have also ,ade out a strong case for Compensation under Section 357 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. After June 2, when Judge PB Desai first declared that a total of 24 persons have been convicted and that the charge of conspiracy not accepted, there were three further dates when detailed arguments, largely on behalf of the accused (for reduction of sentence) took place. SM Vohra with Salim Shaikh argued strongly for a strong life term for all accused and also submitted written arguments.
 

Despite falling into the Rarest of the Rare Category, Victim Survivors, in written arguments to be submitted in Court on June 6, press for complete Life Imprisonment and also make out a strong Case for Compensation

Asked by Special Judge, P.B. Desai to make written submissions on quantum of punishment to be given to the accused, advocates for the victim survivors of the Gulberg carnage have argued for a full life term imprisonment for all accused and compensation awards under section 357 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. A copy of the written submissions can be read here.

A team of lawyers for the Mumbai-based Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) spent the entire weekend preparing the written arguments based on recent jurisprudences into the issue. A slew of judgements of India’s Supreme Court has deliberated in detail the question, holding in several cases that even in the rarest of the rate, most gruesome and pre-meditated crimes, death penalty should not be the automatic choice.

On June 2, Special Judge PB Desai had convicted 25 persons out of the total 66 accused; 11 for offences related to murder (section 302), 436 (arson) and illegal assembly (149) and another 14 for attempt to murder (Section 307) and other offences. Four of the accused convicted have been in custody for 14 years, another four for 12 and 8 years each while 17 of the accused have been out of bail. A Table on with details on this can be read here: 

Gulberg Case: Details of Accused Held Guilty by Judge PB Desai

In the application the victim survivors have argued that:
“The accused who have been convicted of offences other than under S. 302 also need to be imposed punishment which is the maximum under the provisions under which they have been convicted.

The accused were part of a mob which admittedly was carrying out mayhem, well armed and with pre-determination to cause harm, injury and death, for more than 5 hours. They are bound to have known that an attack on the Society will, in all likelihood lead to murder(s).

They have also been found guilty of burning and destroying houses (Section 436 of the Indian Penal Code) the normal consequence of which would be death of persons who were residing there or who tried to run out. Therefore in view of the judgments in (please cite the above three cases) these are aggravating circumstances and deserve to be dealt with no leniency whatsoever. 

Besides, in the application the witness survivors have argued that even for offences under Section 436 (Mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house, etc.) there are provisions in the law for punishment of imprisonment for life. As far as being convicted under Section 149 (illegal assembly) is concerned the Supreme Court has often held that the very act and common intent of being in such an illegal assembly, armed and with criminal intent is sufficient to be considered a grave offence.

Section 357 of the CRPC, reads:
(1) When a Court imposes a sentence of fine or a sentence (including a sentence of death) of which fine forms a part, the Court may, when passing judgment, order the whole or any part of the fine recovered to be applied-
(a) in defraying the expenses properly incurred in the prosecution;
(b) in the payment to any person of compensation for any loss or injury caused by the offence, when compensation is, in the opinion of the Court, recoverable by such person in a Civil Court;
(c) when any person is convicted of any offence for having caused the death of another person or of having abetted the commission of such an offence, in paying compensation to the persons who are, under the Fatal Accidents Act, 1855 (13 of 1855 ), entitled to recover damages from the person sentenced for the loss resulting to them from such death;
(d) when any person is convicted of any offence which includes theft, criminal misappropriation, criminal breach of trust, or cheating, or of having dishonestly received or retained, or of having voluntarily assisted in disposing of, stolen property knowing or having reason to believe the same to be stolen, in compensating any bona fide purchaser of such property for the loss of the same if such property is restored to the possession of the person entitled thereto.
(2) If the fine is imposed in a case

The argument that even though the crime falls under rarest of the rare, punishment should be life was dealt with in detail in this judgement in 2015. For example in para 53 of the recent 2015 Judgement, (Vishal Yadav v/s State of UP, the Court has held that:
“53. The Supreme Court observed that principles of deterrence and retribution are the cornerstones of sentencing in (1994) 2 SCC 220, Dhananjoy Chatterjee Vs. State of West Bengal and (1996) 6 SCC 241, Gentela Vijayavandhan Rao v. State of Andhara Pradesh. It was also observed that these principles also cannot be categorised as right or wrong as much depends upon the belief of the judges. The court extracted the following portion of the decision of the Supreme Court in (2006) 2 SCC 359, Shailash Jasvantbhai v. State of Gujarat :

―7. xxx xxx Protection of society and stamping out criminal proclivity must be the object of law which must be achieved by imposing appropriate sentence. Therefore, law as a cornerstone of the edifice of "order"should meet the challenges confronting the society. xxx xxx Therefore, in operating the sentencing system, law should adopt the corrective machinery or deterrence based on factual matrix. By deft modulation, sentencing process be stern where it should be, and tempered with mercy where it warrants to be. The facts and given circumstances in each case, the nature of the crime, the manner in which it was planned and committed, the motive for commission of the crime, the conduct of the accused, the nature of weapons used and all other Crl.A.Nos.910, 741, 958/2008, Crl.Rev.P.No.369/2008, Crl.A.Nos.1322/2011 & 145/2012 pg. 30 attending circumstances are relevant facts which would enter into the area of consideration.‖ (Underlining by us) Death sentence jurisprudence – divergence in views The discussion on this subject is being considered under the following sub-headings:

63. In this evaluation of the jurisprudence, it is essential to note the pronouncement of the Supreme Court reported at (2013) 5 SCC 546, Shankar Kisanrao Khade v. State of Maharashtra in which the appellant, a man of 52 years, had been convicted for murder and strangulation of an 11 year old minor girl with intellectual disability after repeated rape and sodomy. Despite the satisfaction of the crime test, the criminal test and the rarest of rare case test, the court was of the view that the extreme sentence of death penalty was not warranted. The court therefore, directed the life sentence awarded for rape and murder to run consecutively.”

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The Rajasthan Muslim Forum: Call for action

Demanding justice for victims of anti-minority violence in Rajasthan

In Sept-October 2011 Communalism Combat had reproduced the preliminary report of a fact-finding team set up by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties to investigate the attacks on the Meo Muslim minority in Gopalgarh, Rajasthan, on September 13-14, 2011, where police brutality and mob violence claimed 10 lives and left several persons injured. Thereafter, in a report on the All India Democratic Women’s Association’s Convention against Communal Conflict in December 2011, CC had revisited the incident.

Distressed by the state government’s reluctance to punish the culprits, including police officers responsible for dereliction of duty, in the violence against innocent Muslims in Gopalgarh (Bharatpur) and elsewhere in Rajasthan, representatives of Rajasthan’s Muslim minority under the banner of the Rajasthan Muslim Forum (RMF) led delegations to the National Commission for Minorities and met ministers in the central government in June 2012 to submit a detailed representation in this regard. In what appears to be a clear instance of contrary messages being sent out by the United Progressive Alliance, a month before the RMF felt compelled to take such steps and meet senior functionaries of the UPA in Delhi, union minister Salman Khurshid and Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh had in a public meeting in Jaipur on May 6, 2012 urged the chief minister of Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot, who was present on the dais, to give prompt and fair justice to the victims of the Gopalgarh violence and punish the guilty.

The press release issued by the RMF on June 26, 2012 tragically encapsulates the attitudes of the state (Congress) and central (UPA) governments towards the punishment of the perpetrators of communal violence in a state under their rule.

Summary of demands

The victims of the Gopalgarh violence of September 13-14, 2011 and concerned citizens and social workers appeal to the government of Rajasthan (GoR), the government of India (GoI) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to give fair and prompt justice to the victims. Documentary evidences and the attitudes of officers show that the victims are not only not getting justice but have been made to suffer further injustice, discrimination and harassment due to delays and arbitrary procedures. Thus victims are made to fend for their own security and legal defence whereas the accused are given a clean chit due to faulty investigations and delays. Ten Muslims died due to police firing and burning and several were injured. Many houses and shops were looted and damaged while the police looked on.

None of the officers responsible for such flagrant dereliction of duty, including the district magistrate (DM) and superintendent of police (SP) of Bharatpur, have been punished. In fact, they have now been reinstated by the state thus demonstrating its desire to shelter them. This is one of the reasons why Rajasthan has witnessed increasing violence against Muslims, in the regions of Marwar, Mewar, Hadoti and Mewat, in recent months. No officer has so far been punished for these incidents of anti-Muslim violence.

The law of the land must apply equally to all, irrespective of class, status and religion.

The adverse roles of the CBI and the state
 

• Using subterfuge (e.g. calling victims for assessment of losses for compensation and then arresting them in Bharatpur), Muslim victims of violence have been treated as perpetrators; they have been arrested and are being harassed by the CBI and police. This is done with the desire to immobilise victims, to undermine their commitment to fight for justice and file first information reports (FIRs) against the accused and officers who conspired with perpetrators and/or committed gross dereliction of duty which resulted in deaths and massive loss of property.
• Ignoring the clear instructions in two government (GoR and GoI) notifications, the CBI took a biased approach while dealing with Muslim victims and guilty officers like the DM and SP; the FIRs filed by Muslim victims were ignored while those filed by the police were investigated and action was taken on them.
• The CBI is intimidating witnesses to the violence. It is asking Muslims only two specific questions (‘How many Muslims were in the masjid?’ and ‘Who instigated the violence?’) without allowing them to narrate the sequence of events which would reveal who cast the first stone. Why is the CBI not interested in a complete chain of circumstances when such an investigation would expose the preplanning and conspiracy behind the violence and bring in the calculated assault on the imam of the Jama Masjid and other Muslims on September 13, 2011 which occurred before passions were allowed to build up and violence erupted? The approach of the CBI is selective, to say the least, and reveals a biased approach in the investigation itself.
• Despite the assurances given to Muslims by the chief minister of Rajasthan, he has not taken strict action against the officers accused of dereliction of duty and others who indulged in arson, looting and killing i.e. those responsible for the loss of Muslim life and property.
• Although the DM and SP of Bharatpur were suspended from service in late September 2011, serious administrative loopholes in the orders passed have ensured that they and other officers could not be punished. The state government deliberately failed to issue show-cause notices to or file charge sheets against the two officers either before or during their suspension. Worse, the state government consciously chose not to intervene before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT); hence it was not heard before the CAT delivered its interim order. The government did not file a review application against the judgement delivered by the CAT nor has it to date appealed against the CAT judgement in the high court, explaining forcefully the reasons for the officers’ suspension.
• Soon after the DM and SP were suspended, representatives of the Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service associations in the state met the then chief secretary to protest against the suspension, claiming that this had demoralised their officers. Such belligerence reveals a disturbing mindset among the senior bureaucracy in the state – where firm action following criminal dereliction of duty is interpreted as a cause for loss of morale. In fact, the suspended officers had violated their constitutional duty and the code of conduct that enjoins IAS/IPS officers to uphold the fundamental rights to life and equality before the law.
•  There is a nexus between the various arms of the bureaucracy that is protecting guilty officers responsible for the carnage in Gopalgarh.
• Compensation for the loss of property has been calculated in accordance with the GoR (home department) rules of 2008; these amounts are miserably low and do not reflect the price index. Most victims have refused to accept the compensation offered. It has been a consistent finding that during communal violence and one-sided violence against Muslims, it is the Muslims who suffer the most in terms of loss of life and property. The corollary then is equally disturbing: while the compensation paid to Muslims for loss of life and property ought to be much higher, it is in fact unrealistically low. This shows a deep-seated prejudice against minorities. The rules were framed during the Congress regime in 2008 when Ashok Gehlot was chief minister. Such norms must be reviewed and upgraded realistically (as has been done in the case of victims of the 1984 Sikh massacre in Delhi or the 2002 Muslim massacre in Gujarat).
• The victim community’s requests for an appointment with the chief minister had not been successful.

Gopalgarh: Victims of mob and state

Background
 

• GoR notification F-19 (13) Home-5/2011, dated September 21, 2011, mentions five FIRS registered (thus far) at the Gopalgarh police station. However, the notification contains clear instructions that all FIRs in the case: "All cases registered at police station Gopalgarh, district Bharatpur, and attempts, abetments and conspiracies in relation to or in connection with the above-mentioned offences and any other offence or offences committed in course of the same transaction or arising out of the same facts" must be investigated.
• GoI notification F. No. 228/65/2011-AVD-II, dated October 11, 2011, refers to the GoR notification above and repeats verbatim GoI instructions which include all cases/FIRs for CBI investigation.  
• However, going against the explicit instructions in the GoR/GoI notifications, SS Kishore, additional superintendent of police, CBI, registered (and thereafter investigated) only five FIRs on October 11, 2011, deliberately excluding the 14 FIRs filed by victim Muslims against the DM, SP, local officers and Gujjars/Hindus, accusing them of conspiracy and of abetting the crimes committed against the victims on September 13-14, 2011. The CBI was quick to register a fresh case on October 11, 2011 but it did not take cognisance of the 14 FIRs that had also been registered at the police station before that date and which it deliberately ignored. This shows that the CBI had acted mala fides in its willingness to protect bureaucrats accused of gross dereliction of duty. This despite the fact that the divisional commissioner of Bharatpur had indicted these officers for dereliction of duty, stating that the investigation must be conducted by an inspector-general of police.
• The GoR notification mentions 20 FIRs, including the 14 FIRs filed by Muslims, and the same instructions (i.e. to investigate all cases/FIRs relating to the incident) were reiterated to the CBI in October 2011.
• About three and a half months later, on January 20, 2012, the GoI issued another notification which mentioned 18 FIRs, including the 14 FIRs filed by Muslims. There was no need to do this, as it was a mere repetition. This appears to have been done with deliberate purpose. It gave the CBI a handle to protect the DM and SP while maintaining that it (the CBI) could begin investigations into the 14 FIRs (which named the DM and SP among other accused) only after the (second) GoI notification of January 20, 2012. This time lag of over three months (October 11, 2011 to January 20, 2012) also allowed the CBI to file a charge sheet against those accused in the five FIRs first registered by it without delay. Since the DM and SP were not mentioned in these FIRs (at least two of which were filed by policemen), both officers could be given a clean chit; there was nothing to incriminate them. The damning accusations against these officers were contained in the 14 FIRs filed by victims which had been registered earlier but which the CBI had deliberately overlooked.

The CBI is determined to protect bureaucrats somehow. It has managed to give them a clean chit despite evidence of their complicity and incompetence. The government of Rajasthan has aided this

• Moreover, the CBI did not act promptly even after the GoI’s second notification had been issued on January 20, 2012. It only registered the cases on February 24, 2012 after a deliberate delay of one month. This amounts to a total delay of five months if the initial GoR/GoI notifications are taken into consideration. In contrast, the CBI acted on the GoI’s first notification (albeit selectively) the very same day i.e. October 11, 2011. It appears that for the CBI, the ‘accused’ named in the five FIRs that were first registered (which include Muslim victims who were attacked in the market and those whose property was looted) are  more serious offenders than the high-profile ‘accused’ (the DM, SP and other officials) named in the 14 FIRs filed by Muslim victims. This shows a clear bias towards the powerful accused and a communal bias against the victims. The conduct of the investigation, the CBI’s selective promptness and delays, served to protect the district administration, particularly the SP and DM, while the victim Muslims were further victimised. While the victim Muslims were in jail, or nursing their injured kinsmen in hospital, the accused were allowed to roam free.
• The 14 FIRs filed by Muslim victims in the incidents of September 13-14, 2011 were registered between September 25 and 27, 2011 after curfew was partially lifted and only after the victims, occupied with the treatment of the injured and the burial of their dead, could muster the courage to do so. There was thus a 12-day delay in the registration of these FIRs. This is not an insurmountable delay in law. Meanwhile, the policemen and Gujjars were at an advantage; they had nothing to fear and were able to file FIRs immediately. (The very fact that the entire police staff of the Gopalgarh police station was transferred to the Bharatpur police lines about a week after the incident points to their complicity in the violence.)
• If all 19 FIRs had been clubbed together for the CBI investigation as per the explicit instructions in the state and central government notifications, the dereliction of duty and collusive roles of the district administrators and others accused by the victims would have become clear, in particular the mala fide intent and conduct of the DM, the SP and other local officials.
• In sum, the CBI is determined to protect bureaucrats somehow. It has managed to give them a clean chit despite evidence of their complicity and incompetence.

The GoR has aided this. As mentioned earlier, it did not file charge sheets against or issue show-cause notices to the DM and SP before or during their suspension, allowing the CAT to give a verdict in their favour. Nor did the state put its views on the conduct of these officials before the tribunal. The GoR had enough evidence against these officers for dereliction of duty as a result of which precious lives were lost, property damaged/looted and communal and social harmony jeopardised or destroyed.

The officers’ failures and culpability were manifested in:

a) Their failure to take preventive measures on September 13, 2011 by arresting those named in the FIR filed by Abdul Gani for assaulting his family and the imam of the Jama Masjid (before the violence had escalated);

b) Their deliberate failure to impose prohibitory orders, or Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (powers to issue an order in urgent cases of nuisance or apprehended danger), on the morning of September 14, 2011 when a crowd had assembled to protest against the assault on the imam; and

c) The DM and SP’s failure to resolve the graveyard land dispute by referring the same to the revenue department and Wakf Board expeditiously.

By their deliberate inaction, passions were allowed to build up.

Among the signatories to the representation are Quari Moinudin, Nazimudin Engineer, Mohd Saleem and Prof M. Hasan (all of the Rajasthan Muslim Forum) along with victims of the Gopalgarh violence, including Abdul Rashid, the imam of the Jama Masjid who was brutally assaulted on the evening of September 13, 2011, as well as several prominent members of the Muslim community across Rajasthan. Prof HC Bhartiya, Prof RC Bhandari, Prof HC Rara, Prof Surendra Singh Chaudhari, Prof NC Jain, Prof RP Bhatnagar and Prof  CH Hada (all formerly of the University of Rajasthan) and Prof SS Shukla, formerly of the Government College, Ajmer, are also key signatories.

Archived From Communalism Combat,  July 2012, Year 18, No- 167. Focus

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In September 2003 the then chief justice of India, VN Khare, had sharply chastised the Gujarat government for not only its failure to protect lives and property but its open collusion in the subversion of the justice process and had subpoenaed evidence in the now famous Best Bakery case. The indignities heaped on the Gujarat state apparatus included the cross-examination in open court of the two most senior civil servants in Gujarat at the time – its chief secretary, PK Lahiri, and director general of police, K. Chakravarti. The judge’s remarks were occasioned by the state’s abysmal failure to offer cogent explanations for the hasty completion of the Best Bakery trial (in a matter of a few weeks!) and the failure to protect evidence or to ensure that all witnesses had appeared for the prosecution, which led to speedy acquittals. It was possibly the first time ever in the history of independent India that the higher judiciary had spoken, and spoken sharply, in a case of mass communal violence. (The apex court then decided to monitor the government’s appeal in the case and subsequently, in an indictment of the Gujarat high court which had dismissed the appeal, ordered retrial and transfer of the case to Mumbai, Maharashtra.)

Two months after these remarks, the first ever conviction in a 2002 carnage case occurred in Nadiad in Kheda district. On November 24, 2003 Judge CK Rane sentenced 12 persons to life imprisonment and three to two years’ rigorous imprisonment. Forty-eight persons were acquitted. The crime: the brutal massacre of 14 Muslims at Ghodasar and Jinger villages in Kheda on March 3, 2002. Six years later, six convicts had jumped parole and the Gujarat state apparatus claimed inability to track them down. About a year earlier, in October 2002, two other carnage cases, Pandharwada, where about 25 Muslims were killed (the unofficial figure is higher), and Kidiad, where 61 Muslims had been chased and burnt alive in two tempos, saw complete acquittals. In both cases, senior elected representatives and functionaries of the ruling dispensation were accused; in both cases, the story behind the acquittals was similar to that in the Best Bakery fast track trial in Vadodara in May 2003 – witnesses had been made to turn hostile.

In February 2006 the Best Bakery retrial judgement of Judge AM Thipsay finally convicted nine persons (if the Gujarat police are to be believed, seven of the accused are still absconding!). On October 30, 2007 eight persons who were accused of rape and murder in Eral, Panchmahal, were sentenced for life while 29 were acquitted. They were part of a mob that had brutalised, raped and then killed seven Muslims. In January 2008, in the Bilkees Bano case, also transferred to Mumbai, Judge UD Salvi sentenced 11 to life imprisonment. The case involved the brutal gang rape of Bilkees and the slaughter of her three-year-old daughter Saleha, during an incident in which 14 Muslims had been massacred. Though a constable was convicted for destruction of evidence, government functionaries, including doctors, escaped the arm of the law and senior policemen who had orchestrated the subversion of the case were let off by the court.

It is in this overall context that the November 9, 2011 verdict in the Sardarpura massacre case – which convicted 31 persons, all of them landed Patels responsible for assaulting defenceless agricultural labourers who had toiled in their fields for generations – must be viewed and assessed. Communalism Combat brings its readers edited excerpts of the judgement as this month’s cover story. This is the highest number of convictions ever recorded in a case of targeted communal violence in independent India. It is a tribute to the grit and courage of the 33 survivor witnesses, displaced from their homes, who testified in court, identified the accused despite threats and inducements and ensured that justice was delivered. That the case was one among those monitored by the Supreme Court, whose directives had ensured effective witness protection, enabled the impossible to happen. That the judge cleared Citizens for Justice and Peace and its secretary of malicious and motivated charges of tutoring witnesses was another landmark. None of this would have been possible without the energetic and committed CJP team, especially its lawyers in Gujarat. Advocates Yusuf Shaikh, Aslam Baig and Sameer Mansuri assiduously participated in an onerous process.

Some points for reflection: Even in simple cases wherein a group of persons acting with one mind have assembled to commit a set of crimes, the charge of conspiracy holds. Why then were the charges of conspiracy under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code dropped?

Remember that Gujarat 2002 was about 300 ghastly incidents in 19 of the state’s 25 districts. Evidence was led through witnesses who testified about significant preparations by politicians and leaders of the Bajrang Dal who enjoyed state patronage and protection. Witnesses also sought to lead evidence on Tehelka magazine’s courageous sting ‘Operation Kalank’ which revealed specific and relevant aspects concerning arms and ammunition being brought into Mehsana (the district in which Sardarpura is located) prior to Godhra, February 27, 2002. At witnesses’ insistence, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) did record the statement of Tehelka’s correspondent Ashish Khetan but they did not call him as a witness. Why? Though former director general of police RB Sreekumar’s affidavits, with annexed reports of the State Intelligence Bureau, corroborated some of this evidence, the SIT was reluctant to probe this aspect further.

Sharp and aggressive in its approach to the Godhra train burning tragedy, the SIT and its prosecutor had not only bought the Gujarat police’s shaky and shady version of conspiracy but had argued for the death penalty, which was imposed on 11 of the 31 accused. In the Sardarpura case, witnesses, being opposed to retributive justice, did not argue for the death penalty at all.

And thus a niggling question remains: do we view the incidents of Godhra and post-Godhra as qualitatively and quantitatively different kinds of crimes? This is a tough one, which the Indian system would do well to answer.

— EDITORS

Archived from Communalism Combat, December 2011, Year 18, No. 162, Editorial

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Systematic and brutal attacks on the Christian community in Orissa

Brutal attacks on the Christian community by Hindutva forces ravaged Orissa’s Kandhamal district during Christmas week 2007. As an unconcerned and partisan administration looked on, a coordinated and well-planned series of attacks was launched on Christians and Christian institutions across the district. While official figures claim that three people were killed, independent estimates state that the number of those dead is much higher, with several people still missing and many more injured. Over 500 homes, more than 70 church institutions and property worth lakhs of rupees was destroyed. More than 3,000 victims of the violence were housed in refugee camps where they are subjected to further torment and denied access to justice and equitable relief.

A preliminary report by the independent fact-finding team led by Dr John Dayal, member, National Integration Council (NIC) and national president, All India Catholic Union, which visited Kandhamal district, Orissa in December 2007 and January 2008. Excerpts:

A tragedy that was waiting to happen and a tragedy that could repeat itself: Urgent conclusions

•  The events in the Kandhamal hill district of Orissa during Christmas week from December 22, 2007 to January 1, 2008 are a story of a tragedy foretold, of political and official condoning if not actual support to the activities of criminals and political activists spreading bigotry, the ideology of hate and violence. It is also a painful narrative of police and administrative indifference, repeated complicity and consistent incompetence. And finally, it is the documentation of an utter collapse of the law and order machinery on December 24, 25, 26 and 27, 2007. So much in a state where Christians number about two per cent, less than the national average.
•  There is an urgent caution and a warning in the Kandhamal developments: Unless everyone – the union government, the Orissa government and its agencies, and religious, social and development agencies – wakes up and acts in concert, there is more tragedy waiting to happen. Like a coalfield fire, passions and tensions are simmering, wounds are suppurating. Only a judicial inquiry by a Supreme Court judge, assisted by the findings of a criminal investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), meets the ends of justice.
•  It is beyond doubt that the violence was premeditated, pre-planned and the work of a well-disciplined group to ensure simultaneous eruption across the Kandhamal district within hours of the first incident and to sustain it for five days despite the presence of the highest police officers in the region. It is clear that the attackers were, in the main, upper caste non-tribals and non-Dalits who had migrated from other districts of Orissa and other states although some youth of the suppressed communities had also been persuaded to join the mobs. The role of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and their extension organisations must be the subject of an intensive investigation by the CBI.
• The sequence of events is quite clear. The Christian community and its institutions were targeted for more than 48 hours with the police looking on and being physically present at the spot in many cases. The anti-Christian violence continued until December 27, 2007. The anti-Hindu violence in Brahmanigaon (Bamunigaon) took place more than 60 hours after the first church was burnt down.
• There are unique, unprecedented and possibly dangerous elements to the Kandhamal violence of Christmas week 2007 although the state has an unhappy history of recorded and unrecorded persecution of Christians, including the burning alive of Australian leprosy mission worker Graham Stuart Staines and his sons Philip and Timothy, and Fr Arul Das, in 1999, and attacks in the Raikia block of Kandhamal and other parts of the hill tracts of Orissa.
• This is the first time at least one Hindu Oriya non-tribal house cluster has been destroyed by arsonists, affecting perhaps a total of 97 families in the villages of Brahmanigaon and Godapur.
• This is the first time that there has been a reported incident of an exchange of fire between the police and a mixed group of tribals, non-tribals and outsiders in Brahmanigaon on December 27, 2007. It is in fact a dubious first for India in which Christians’ involvement is alleged. This by itself must be subjected to close study by academics and state organisations as also by the Christian leadership.
• This is the biggest recorded case of such a large number of Christian houses being burnt, in Brahmanigaon and Barakhama, other than churches, convents and hostels which have been targets of violence in other states, most notably in Gujarat 2002, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka and occasionally even in New Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Kashmir. We have recorded over 200 cases of violence across the country before the outbreak in Kandhamal in Orissa.
• The burning of medical centres and hostels speaks of a criminal disregard for humanity and the welfare of the people. We were told of several instances where nuns said they and their patients were in need of food and medicines.
• This is the first time in history since independence that about 3,000 Christian men, women and children are forced to live in two refugee camps, eating boiled rice not fit for human consumption because of the quantity of sand and grit, and living in the cold with no toilets, precious little medical care and no woollens. In the camp in Brahmanigaon they share this misery with their Hindu brothers and sisters. The irony is not lost. In the super cyclone and other natural disasters that have devastated the state of Orissa in the past, Christian NGOs and church groups were almost always among the first to set up relief camps and rehabilitation projects for the common people irrespective of religion and ethnic identity.
• The quality of violence against the Christian faith must be recorded so that lessons can be learnt. It has to be seen to be believed. Hate so deep and pungent does not augur well for the country and, of course, poses an immediate threat to the ideals of secularism and freedom of faith, the right to life and the right to dignity enshrined in the Constitution of India. Church buildings are broken, nuns manhandled, priests chased away, convent cows killed as their straw is set afire. These are heinous crimes. The ravishing of statues of Mary, grinding her face underfoot until nothing remains but shreds, desecrating the Host which Catholics hold to be the body of Christ and vandalising of ritual holy material before setting everything on fire speaks of an ideologically cultivated venom that has percolated deep and will need deep political and social activism to quell, defeat and eliminate.
• The police force of the district failed on all counts. The government must ensure that in future police action is not thwarted by roadblocks (however big the tree that has been felled), communication failure and lack of mobility. It is a matter of regret for the people of the state and shame for the Orissa police authorities that several incidents of grave violence and heinous crime were committed while the police looked on. This happened in more than one block headquarters.
• It is a matter of regret that until January 3, when we spoke to the last police officer before leaving the district, we recorded extremely partisan, even bigoted, behaviour in senior field police officers of the rank of circle inspector and subdivisional police officer. Senior development officers of the rank of commissioner, in their language to the victims and to us, displayed a condemnable cynicism and bias against a minority community. We are happy to record that junior and young tehsildars (administrative officers), rushed in the last days, show a more humane nature.
• There is a continuing reign of terror. Many villages are now villages of women. The men are in hiding. Elsewhere, entire villages are deserted. Steps must be taken to create a situation in which the people can return to their homes and not live in terror.
• Despite four days of extensive investigation, we have not been able to speak authoritatively of the number of dead killed by arsonists, in clashes, in police firings, or of injuries. Two dead in Brahmanigaon and two dead in Balliguda are confirmed by the police – the one person killed in police firing remains unidentified. Any one dead body just confirms a single death but does not tell how many others may have died whose bodies have not been recovered by the authorities.
• Similarly, only major church buildings, particularly of the Catholic church, the Church of North India (CNI) and the Baptist church can be easily counted because they are along the roadside at major crossroads and towns. Independent Evangelical churches and mission stations of major denominations exist in villages that have still not been reached.
• The state government’s claims of an overlay of the issues of Maoist activities in the region, the agitation of the Kuis and the Christmas week violence is not tenable. The presence of Maoists or Naxalites and the Kui movement are real in some blocks but the nature of the violence against Christians is in a group by itself. Whatever overlay does exist could have been overcome and much violence prevented if the authorities had not given permission for the hartal, or closures, on Christmas day, a date with which they are, and ought to be, familiar as educated persons.
• Attempts are also being made to present the incidents as a tribal versus Christian conflict. The evidence is to the contrary. The relations between Christian tribals and Christian non-tribals, Christian Dalits and Dalits of other faiths, as well as between Christians belonging to the tribal and Dalit communities remain cordial, as they have been historically. The issue that remains pertinent is the targeting of Dalit and tribal Christians by political-religious fundamentalists.
• It is clear that Christians, both tribals and Panas, and Dalits of various religious persuasions, are particular victims of violence. Persons opposed to the demand by a section of the community to seek scheduled status have mobilised and hijacked some of the youth of their followers to join the mobs in various hamlets and towns. The issue of scheduled tribe status must be amicably resolved with the help of a judicial or similar commission and through appropriate inquiry without delay.
• The government must also sympathetically consider the classification of a group of people who are being discriminated against twice over because of their religion. This is a group which was listed as a scheduled tribe under the British government and then listed as a scheduled caste by the state administration. Those of them professing the Christian faith are denied protection of the law and access to affirmative action programmes of the government on both counts. They do not get scheduled caste reservation and other privileges because they are now Dalits. And they do not get the privileges their Dalit brothers and sisters get because as Christians they are no longer supposed to be even Dalits. They remain in an inhuman, unconstitutional limbo, discriminated against just for their religious beliefs. This discrimination must end forthwith if the guarantees of freedom of faith under the United Nations Charter and the Indian Constitution are to have any meaning.
• The Government of India, the Supreme Court of India and other state agencies must take notice and learn their lesson. Peace committees as being constituted are not the answer. They have lost credibility. Victims have lost faith in committees constituted of their persecutors. Truth and reconciliation and an entirely unbiased state are the answer. Everyone has a role to play in this.
• Keeping in view the deep distrust that victim communities have of local police officers, central police forces must remain in the area until confidence is restored.
• Peace and reconciliation will be possible only with justice and truth. The guilty must be identified and prosecuted with all the might of the state. Biased officials, as much as corrupt officials, are responsible for the lack of development in the Kandhamal region. They must be identified so that they are never again in command positions where they can join with communal political elements pursuing their agenda of hate. There are many wise suggestions contained in the Justice Wadhwa Commission report that inquired into the murders of the Staines family, as also in reports by other commissions set up in the aftermath of communal incidents in other states. They need to be implemented, especially those relating to the police and the administration, and fundamentalist organisations, if Orissa is to remain peaceful.
• Orissa does not have forums such as a State Minorities Commission that can move fast to restore confidence. A State Minorities Commission, as recommended by the National Commission for Minorities, must be set up soon with statutory powers.
• Relief too must consist of materials and compensation according to national standards set in states that see communal violence and persecution, and it must also contain compassion, fairness and transparency.
• Irrespective of the sloganeering by Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati who has made Kandhamal his home in recent years with the avowed objective of purging the region of every Christian presence, Christians are not enemies of the people of India or of the state. To say, as he says repeatedly even in the presence of the police, ‘Whosoever converts to Christianity becomes an enemy’, is a crime under the law of the land. To say ‘Christians will not be tolerated’. And to say it on national satellite channels is equally a crime. Action must be taken in the interests of justice and protecting the Constitution. This saintly gentleman is obviously not just above the law but is the law in the area, judging by the attitude of the police and local administrative officers towards him.
• National TV channels and segments of the local media need to introspect on whether in their reportage of the Kandhamal developments they have observed the code of ethics of the Editors Guild of India and practices observed in their reporting. Secularism, fairness and truth must remain part of the training of media persons in media institutions as well as in print, television and cyber media organisations as an ongoing process. It is interesting to note that video interviews of Lakshmanananda Saraswati were filmed by a private videographer, a known activist of the RSS, within the premises of a medical centre belonging to another RSS activist, and the tape was then telecast without further corroboration. In the tape Lakshmanananda Saraswati repeatedly said, "When people become Christians they become enemies, they become enemies of the nation. I will not tolerate this" (translated from the Hindi/Oriya). This statement, assiduously propagated, went a long way in fanning the fires.

Statistics of the violence

Deaths: Police confirm three deaths – One in police firing (unidentified but unofficially listed as Christian by the police) and two (one Hindu, one Christian) in Barakhama and Brahmanigaon. Human rights activists understand that six persons have died in the police firing in Brahmanigaon. The bodies have not been found, and are presumed to have been taken away by the mob. There have been no deaths reported in the arson although several priests and nuns had a close encounter with death.

Missing: There are persons reported missing from almost every hamlet. This is the subject of long-term investigations. Many have fled out of fear of the police. Some are safe with relatives. Others are in police custody with the police not admitting or confirming this. It will take many weeks before a count becomes possible.

It is beyond doubt that the violence was premeditated, pre-planned and the work of a well-disciplined group to ensure simultaneous eruption across the Kandhamal district within hours of the first incident and to sustain it for five days despite the presence of the highest police officers in the region.

Arson: Fire was the instrument of choice. The arsonist mob was well motivated, well armed and had come prepared with weapons and sharp iron implements.

Preliminary list of properties/places destroyed and desecrated:

Church institutions destroyed (Total: 71)

• Parish churches (five):

Balliguda; Brahmanigaon; Sankharakhole; Pobingia; Padangi

• Village churches (48):

Bodagan–Balliguda; Balliguda town; Kamapada–Balliguda; Mandipanka–Godapur; Jhinjirguda–Brahmanigaon; Ulipadaro–Brahmanigaon; Goborkutty–Kattingia; Kulpakia–Nuagaon; Dohapanga–Balliguda; seven churches in Sirtiguda–Balliguda; four churches in Phiringia; seven churches in Phulbani; four churches in Ruthungia; four churches in Kalingia; two churches in Tikabali, four village churches in Nuagaon; three other village churches; Boriguda (Padangi); Bakingia (Raikia); Dalagaon; Iripiguda. (This list of village churches is not exhaustive for reasons of topography and accessibility.)

• Convents (five):

Balliguda; Pobingia; Phulbani; Brahmanigaon; Sankharakhole

• Presbytery (four):

Balliguda; Pobingia; Brahmanigaon; Padangi

• Hostels (seven):

Pobingia – two; Balliguda – two; Brahmanigaon – two; Minor seminary (Balliguda)

• Others (two):

Vocational Training Centre (Balliguda); Sarsananda, leprosy centre (Pobingia)

Houses looted and destroyed/burnt (Total: over 500)

• 400 houses looted and destroyed in Barakhama; Tractors, cycles, motorcycles, shop goods, burnt
• 31 Christian houses burnt in Brahmanigaon
• 67 Hindu houses burnt in Brahmanigaon Oriyasahi
• 30 Christian houses burnt in Ulipadaro (Brahmanigaon)

(Arson in Phiringia, which continues (beyond the initial phase of violence), is political, involving supporters and opponents of former Orissa minister Padmanabha Behera and the caste issue.)

Shops /other properties destroyed (Total: 126)

• Brahmanigaon – 81
• Godapur – 25
• Barakhama – 20

Vehicles and other properties destroyed: Survey not yet done

Animals killed: One cow, black Jersey milch cattle, Balliguda convent, consequent to arson

Violence affected revenue blocks, Kandhamal district

Daringbari block; Balliguda block; Phiringia block; Phulbani block; Tikabali block; Khajuripoda block; Nuagaon block; Gumsar Udaigiri block; Tumudibandha block; Kothaghar block

Relief camps: The Government of Orissa has set up two relief camps, in Barakhama and in Brahmanigaon, in school buildings. The conditions in both camps are inhuman and shameful, particularly the utter lack of regard for the needs of women, children and the ill. Despite its experience of natural calamities, the government has not learnt lessons in immediate succour and assistance to the distressed and needy. We find it incomprehensible that the union home minister and the Orissa chief minister came to Barakhama in a helicopter, came to the relief camp and chose to sit under a shamiana, or tent, and talk to the people across a rope. They did not walk down a few metres to the classrooms where the injured and the ill lay. Nor did they even bother to look at the cooked rice, full of grit, which the people had to eat for want of anything else.

Calendar, chronicle and narratives of the violence

• Brahmanigaon, December 9, 2007

Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, commonly referred to as Swamiji, visited Brahmanigaon and had a secret meeting with the Bighneswaro Banika Sangh who are members of the RSS and VHP. The situation was tense in and around Brahmanigaon from that day onwards.

• Brahmanigaon, December 19, 2007

Permission for Christmas celebrations was obtained from the subcollector and CI office, Balliguda.

• Church youth and the Dr BR Ambedkar Banika Sangh took permission for Christmas celebrations. Officials approved it. The police circle inspector and subdivisional police officer (SDPO) inspected the site and approved it. They promised protection from December 23.
• Brahmanigaon, December 21, 2007

The SDPO visited Brahmanigaon. Christian elders met the SDPO and apprised him of the situation; he also assured them of his participation in the celebrations. The SDPO had called leaders of both communities, Hindus and Christians, for the meeting but the Hindus did not attend.

• Bhubaneswar, December 21-23, 2007

The Arya Samaj of Bhubaneswar organised a three-day Baba Ram Dev yoga programme at Capital High School, Unit III, Bhubaneswar. Twenty-five to 30 busloads of people were brought in from Kandhamal for the purpose.

On December 22, all RSS presidents from every panchayat of Kandhamal district attended a secret meeting held from 11.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. at an unknown location.

On the evening of December 23, once the yoga programme concluded, attendees returned to their respective homes. And from the morning of December 24, attacks began on the various church communities.

• Kandhamal district headquarters, December 22, 2007

The Christian Jana Kalyan Samaj of Kandhamal met the collector and Kandhamal district SP (superintendent of police), Narasingh Bhol. They handed over a written statement protesting the bandh called on December 25 and 26 at Kandhamal and asking that Christians be allowed to observe Christmas.

• Brahmanigaon, December 22, 2007

The SP visited Brahmanigaon to inquire into the situation, saw how matters stood but did not station any additional police forces there.

• Brahmanigaon, December 23, 2007

The police force of the district failed on all counts. The government must ensure that in future police action is not thwarted by roadblocks, communication failure and lack of mobility. It is a matter of regret for the people of the state and shame for the Orissa police authorities that several incidents of grave violence and heinous crime were committed while the police looked on

Hindu youth told church women and youth not to put up Christmas decorations. The Christians showed them their government permission order.

• Brahmanigaon, December 23, 2007, 1.30 p.m.

The Dr BR Ambedkar Banika Sangh of Brahmanigaon together with six sarpanches of the area assessed the situation and sent a fax message to the district SP in Phulbani and then met him at Brahmanigaon. The Ambedkar Banika Sangh went to the police station and discussed the tense situation in the area. They also discussed the likelihood of a secret plan by Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati and VHP leaders to perform a yagna (offering/sacrifice, puja) in front of the church.

• Brahmanigaon, December 23, 2007

6.30 p.m. – A member of the Ambedkar Banika Sangh phoned the district SP, requesting additional police forces in the village.

• Brahmanigaon, December 24, 2007, 6.00 a.m.

The sarpanches of six gram panchayats together with village heads went to the police station and asked them to allow the weekly haat market to be opened, which RSS and Bajrang Dal activists were opposing.

• Brahmanigaon, December 24, 2007, 7.00 a.m.

The ASI (assistant subinspector) came to the market and ordered that the market be opened.

• Brahmanigaon, December 24, 2007, 8.30 a.m.

The weekly market was under way. All of a sudden, RSS leader Bikram Rout, Dhanu Pradhani and others came and threatened vendors and customers, warning them to stop trade. They also ordered shopkeepers to close down their shops and there were tussles between them. A customer was beaten up by the Bikram Rout group. Christians needed to shop for some important articles as December 25 was Christmas day.

Some Christians were putting up Christmas decorations, a big pandal (temporary structure) with a crib, sound system, etc, for night worship. The same miscreants also went to them and asked them to stop the decorations, even warning the Christians not to have any celebrations. Here too there were tussles between both groups.

At around 10 a.m. Bikram Rout and others, RSS, VHP, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Bajrang Dal members, came armed with guns, swords, iron rods and other lethal weapons and attacked the Christians. The Christians, who were unarmed, fled to the nearby forest to save their lives. In the process, two Christians (Sillu and Avinash) sustained bullet injuries. Some others were wounded by other weapons.

The local police were inactive and did not take prompt action against the miscreants; these events all took place in the presence of the police. The police station is just 400 yards from the church.

All the Christians, including the priest and nuns, fled to the forest, leaving all their belongings behind.

• Dasingbadi, December 24, 2007, 10.45 a.m.

Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, known as Swami, at Jalespatta, Tumudibandha PS in Kandhamal district, was travelling to Brahmanigaon in his vehicle when a private bus that was in front of his vehicle on the narrow road encountered some technical trouble and had to stop on the road at Dasingbadi, near the Dasingbadi upper primary school.

There is a small village church in Dasingbadi, not far from the road, where Christian youth were busy putting up decorations for Christmas. Christmas music was being played.

Hearing the sound, Lakshmanananda Saraswati apparently asked his bodyguards and his driver to go and have the music stopped. The security guards and the driver (who are government security men) went to the spot, got into an argument with the Christian youth and at some point pulled down the decorations and the sound boxes, etc even as the Christian youth confronted them.

There is no evidence of a physical assault on Lakshmanananda Saraswati. Because of the controversy surrounding this incident, there is need for a CBI inquiry specifically into this as part of a general probe.

Lakshmanananda Saraswati then went to Daringbari in his vehicle and took his security men to the medical officer, Dr Pradhan, at Daringbari Community Health Centre, claiming they were injured. He spent two days there, at the family planning office, looked after by Dr Pradhan (who is also a Bajrang Dal member) while the inspector in-charge (IIC) of Daringbari, Mr Pradhan, provided eight or 10 policemen to guard him. The IIC advised Lakshmanananda Saraswati not to go to Brahmanigaon.

From the afternoon of December 24, rumours of Lakshmanananda Saraswati being attacked in Dasingbadi spread across the district.

Dharmendra Pradhan and Surendra Sahoo, local residents from Daringbari, went to meet Lakshmanananda Saraswati on hearing about the incident, that there had been a tussle between his security men and Christian youth at Dasingbadi. They were saddened by events and proposed to have a peace meeting to resolve the issue. But there, in the presence of the IIC and other local leaders, Lakshmanananda Saraswati said, "Kranti no thile shanti nahi, Mote kichhi mado hoi nahi (Without revolution no peace, I am not hurt)".

At about 1 p.m. on December 25 Lakshmanananda Saraswati left the Daringbari community hospital by an official jeep via Soroda road.

An RSS youth, Muna Sahoo, who owns a video camera, filmed the statement and interview with Lakshmanananda Saraswati, which was then telecast on satellite television channels in the media.

• Barakhama, December 24, 2007, 4.00 p.m.

The Christian community, aware that some untoward incident could well take place, started their Christmas worship at 4 p.m. itself.

A group of hoodlums, about 2,000 people with red tilaks on their foreheads, armed with swords, axes, pharsas (hoes), etc and chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’; ‘Christian manonku mari diyo (Kill the Christians)’; ‘Girija dhansa koro (Destroy the church)’, etc, destroyed the Pentecostal church that lies in the eastern part of the village.

Seeing the mob and the flames, Christian villagers started running towards the forest to save themselves.

Those whose houses were burnt belong mainly to the Christian community and they are now taking shelter at the Barakhama high school.

Frightened for their lives, the men are still living in the jungle and yet officials demand that the women bring their menfolk with them else they will not receive relief materials. On the other hand, when the men do leave the jungle to come to the camp, the police book them on false cases and arrest them. Moreover, the officers in charge refuse to accept the victims’ FIRs (first information reports) pertaining to the initial attacks.

• Balliguda, December 24, 2007, 7.30 p.m.

At about 7.30 p.m. more than 400 miscreants, likely Bajrang Dal and RSS members, kumkum on their foreheads, chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram ’ and bearing guns, swords, axes, pharsas and other lethal weapons in their hands, broke open the main gate of the church, abusing the few Christian youth who were busy adding the last touches to their decorations before Christmas worship. There was stone throwing.

The mob charged towards the youth shouting, ‘Salle Christian manonku jeevan re mari diyo’; ‘Girija dhansa koro’. Faced with the barbarity of the crowd, the youth together with priest, nuns, hostel boys and seminarians all fled to the jungle to save their lives.

The mob then collected all the furniture, material for worship, the contents of the hostel godown and various personal belongings and set them afire, burning them to ashes within minutes.

The school, hostel and sisters’ residence, which is in another compound, were also ransacked and set on fire. It was only with great difficulty that the sisters and the hostel girls managed to escape to safety. One of the sisters was caught and badly manhandled by the mob.

A cow died as a consequence of the arson.

All this took place in the presence of police officials, including the tehsildar, the BDO (block development officer), the subcollector, the IIC and others.

No police action was taken. No curfew was imposed in the district.

• Pobingia, December 25, 2007, 9.00 a.m.

A mob entered the church compound at Pobingia and burnt the church, presbytery, boys’ hostel, convent and girls’ hostel.

• Brahmanigaon, December 25, 2007

10.00 a.m. – A mob first entered the village church of Ulipadaro, then destroyed and burnt 30 Christian houses and severely beat Christian residents.

11.45 a.m. – A mob entered the main gate of the church, breaking down the grills, houses, church, the priest’s residence and other properties and setting them on fire.

• Brahmanigaon, December 25, 2007, 2.00 p.m.

Orissa, December 2007

Miscreants gathered once again, entered the market and burnt shops and houses belonging to the Christian community.

• Kalingia, December 25, 2007, Day

Village church was burnt.

• Tikabali, December 25, 2007, Day

Village church was burnt.

• Sarsananda, December 25, 2007, 10.00 p.m.

Church was attacked and burnt in the presence of a magistrate and 22 police personnel.

• Bodagan, December 25, 2007, Night

Church was attacked.

• Kamapada, December 25, 2007, Night

Church was attacked.

•  Kulpakia, December 25, 2007, Night

Church was attacked.

• Sirtiguda, December 25, 2007, Night

Seven churches were burnt.

• Phiringia, December 25, 2007, Night

Church was attacked.

•  Ruthungia, December 25, 2007, Night

Eight village churches were burnt.

• Nuagaon, December 25, 2007, Night

Nine village churches were burnt.

• Dalagaon, December 25, 2007, Night

Village church was burnt.

• Iripiguda, December 25, 2007, Night

Village church was burnt.

• Krutumgarh, December 26, 2007

Non-Christian tribals of Krutumgarh collected Rs 50 from each family and had a yagna in the village. After the puja they were dancing with weapons like swords, sickles, pharsas, etc.

• Padangi, December 26, 2007, Night

Boriguda village church was burnt.

• Sankharakhole, December 26, 2007, Night

A mob entered the church compound at Sankharakhole and attacked the church, convent and priest’s residence.

• Brahmanigaon, December 27, 2007, 12.15 p.m.

There are differing accounts, even from victims, as to how the Oriyasahi (non-tribal, non-Dalit, Oriya-speaking Hindu) houses were burnt. Some say villagers from the local area burnt houses in Paikosahi. Others say it was outsiders, even from outside the district.

The police have still not provided a coherent account about the direction from which the mob came, to the walled area where civilians had taken shelter or were being kept, and to the premises of the police station nearby. This is not an open area and involves rough ground, a narrow road and many houses. Police forces opened fire on the mob when two persons were killed and the crowd dispersed.

Because this is in the nature of an encounter between a mob and the police, with an exchange of fire, this needs a separate inquiry under the law.

There is also need for a thorough probe as to what happened to the civilians injured in police firing, as several rounds were fired. The police admit to one uniformed person being injured.

Illustrative testimonies of key witnesses/victims

Oral testimony by Father Rabi Sabhasundar, Catholic parish priest, Brahmanigaon, a native of the district

"The Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, Brahmanigaon, Kandhamal district, Orissa consists of around 1,630 members belonging to 217 families. Like any other year, this year, 2007, the people of Brahmanigaon were getting ready to celebrate Christmas. So they had put up a Christmas pandal and crib in front of Christian shops as they do every year. The Christmas pandal was adorned with lights and other decorations and had a sound system. A committee (Ambedkar Banika Sangh) had already received permission for the pandal-making and celebrations from the collector, subcollector and SP. As they proceeded with these preparations, with prior permission, on the eve of Christmas celebrations, the Banika Sangh committee of Hindu groups along with RSS president Bikram Rout, 40, son of Kishore Rout, Nuagaon, Brahmanigaon PS, and Dhanu Pradhani, son of Bainath, Jhinjirguda, Brahmanigaon, in order to disrupt these celebrations, went to the police station and complained repeatedly to the ASI telling him not to allow the weekly market at Brahmanigaon.

At around 10 a.m. on Monday, December 24, the RSS president Bikram Rout along with his RSS members and Hindu traders went to the marketplace and forcibly stopped people from holding the market that day. Earlier, the ASI of Brahmanigaon police station along with five or six sarpanches from the area and most market-goers from the village had come to the marketplace and convinced Bikram Rout and his group to allow the market to continue. However, soon after the ASI’s departure, Bikram Rout and his group assaulted several villagers who had come to the market, some of whom were severely beaten with sticks and iron bars. The group brandished their weapons, threatening to attack the market-goers.

Not long after this, a mob of about 200 people came running to the pandal with guns, spears, axes and many other traditional weapons and completely destroyed the beautifully decorated crib. They also broke, looted and burnt Christian owned shops. Some of them poured petrol on and burnt three motorcycles belonging to Christians. The angry mob also burnt a generator, the light and sound system and other articles of decoration belonging to people from Digapainy, Gajapati district, which had been hired for the Christmas celebrations.

During the attack on the pandal, a 15-year-old boy was shot. Another young boy of about 12 was brutally attacked and sustained sword wounds to the head. When the boy’s parents rushed to his rescue, both of them were also beaten, receiving injuries from iron bars and traditional weapons. Following this fearsome attack, many Christians from the locality and many market-goers who had come to Brahmanigaon from nearby villages ran for their lives. Taking advantage of their helpless dispersal, Bikram Rout and his RSS members along with Hindu traders and many other Hindus set out to destroy the Christians’ shops one by one.

On December 24, 2007, instead of celebrating midnight mass, most Christians, their babies and young ones in tow, took shelter in the nearby forest where they spent a bitterly cold, dark and sleepless night. On December 25, believing that the attacks would have stopped, many of those who had taken shelter in the forest returned to their houses. But the atrocities continued on that day as well. At 10 a.m. around 400-500 RSS activists, Hindu traders from the locality with many other Hindus from nearby Hindu villages marched towards the Christian street, shouting slogans like ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Jai Hanuman’, and hurling abuse, using all sorts of vulgar and threatening words like ‘Magyasala’, ‘Padry manonku jail diyo’, ‘Semango Church ebang anustano pudi diyo, Christian manonku hatao’, and then looted and burnt most of the houses.

After having completely destroyed the houses and their contents, they forcibly entered the church campus with guns, petrol, diesel, kerosene, bombs and traditional weapons and broke and burnt the doors, windows, statues, altar, several musical instruments, the lights and sound system, furniture and many other church and religious articles, including the Bible, and completely desecrated the church. Meanwhile, some of them entered the presbytery and burnt the father’s residence as well as two motorcycles, a generator, steel and wooden almirahs, all the documents and furniture after looting several lakh rupees worth of property.

After completely destroying the church and the presbytery, the angry mob went around in search of priests and nuns to harass and burn alive. Confronted with the ravaging mob of RSS activists, three priests, a deacon, a regent, two brothers, five sisters of the Holy Cross Convent, Brahmanigaon and four domestic workers ran to the nearby jungle together with many other Christians to save their lives.

It is especially tragic that all these atrocities, this destruction, took place in the presence of police forces. Till today, priests, nuns and others are hiding out in forests and nearby villages in sheer terror. Though the government has promised to provide relief to people of both communities, unfortunately only one community, Hindus, are given relief while Christians are neglected. When Christian women go to ask for relief materials, government relief officials harass them and tell them to bring their husbands. Having experienced atrocities at the hands of the Hindu community and then harassment by government officials, Christians continue to live in fear and trepidation. We don’t know how long this violence and cruelty will persist."

Statement by Sister Zerina, principal, Carmel School, Phulbani

"The school is situated only about two kilometres from the superintendent of police and collector’s offices in Phulbani. There are 550 students in our school, which was started in 1989. Ninety-eight per cent of the students are Hindu, there are only two per cent Christians in the school. There are four sisters, four Christian teachers, 13 Hindu teachers, two Christian staff and one Hindu accountant at the school. I have been principal here for the last two years.

I received news on December 23 that something would happen and also heard about the bandh called on December 25 and 26. I wanted to go to Bhopal for a meeting the same evening but a local shopkeeper advised me not to go that night or the next day. We then decided not to go to Bhopal at all. At 6.30 p.m. on December 24, some locals came and met us; they reported that automobile tyres were being set on fire at Madiguda chowk, just 200 metres from the school. At about the same time, the parish priest, Fr Mathew telephoned to say there would be no holy mass at the Christ Jyoti parish church. I also received a phone call from Sr Christa in Balliguda, saying the problem was escalating. The deputy collector, Arun Parichha rang to tell us that there was some trouble in Brahmanigaon. He said the vehicle of an RSS leader had been attacked and there would be more trouble and that he was monitoring the law and order situation. At about 8 p.m. Sr Christa from the convent in Balliguda rang me to say the convent in Balliguda had been set on fire. She asked us to pray for them. The sisters and I panicked. At about 8.30 p.m. we received news from Sr Christa in Balliguda saying they were safe but acutely suffocated because their premises were filled with smoke. That was the last connection we had with our sisters from Balliguda that day.

At around 9.30 a.m. on December 25, a Hindu teacher, Mr Sarangdhar came to the school to ask about my travel plans. Fr Bijya Nayak from Krutumgarh also rang up and warned us of a possible attack on the school, convent and parish. We rang up a neighbour, Mr Paul Raj from Sadhan, to ask for help from the police. Meanwhile, Sr Christa also rang and advised us to leave the premises and take all our important documents with us. There were a total of four sisters, two maidservants and two hostel girls who were also with us at the convent. At 11.00 a.m. I went for prayers. That was when Sr Rohine shouted, "They’ve come inside!" The mob was shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Kill the Christians’. They all carried swords and other weapons. On seeing the crowd, Sr Rohine and Sr Hemanti jumped over the convent wall and ran for their lives. One of them sprained her leg in the process. About fifteen minutes after the attack began some policemen came to our school. There has been damage to the school and the school bus."

Statement by Fr Laxmikanta Pradhan, Catholic church, Balliguda

"At around 7.30 p.m. on the evening of December 24 a huge group of Hindu fundamentalists with kumkum on their foreheads and carrying lethal weapons like swords, guns, iron rods and axes in their hands, rushed to our church, abusing the priest and sisters in very filthy language. They broke the main gate and entered the church compound, started breaking all the Christmas decorations, pandal and worship materials. They then wanted to kill some of the Christians who were busy preparing for Christmas celebrations. We ran for our lives and took refuge in the jungle. From the hill we could see the flames rising up from our church, residence and hostels. Later, we found that the church and all the worship materials had been burnt down. In the residence and hostels too we found that everything had been burnt."

Setting up the fact-finding committee

The first act of violence took place on the morning of December 24, 2007 in the small town of Brahmanigaon, which has a police station, the office or the revenue office and other institutions. This is a major entry point to the entire Kandhamal hills region and an important marketplace. Some Christians own shops and are comparatively better off than others. They have mobile phones, as does the parish priest whose church was the first to be burnt down. They informed Archbishop Raphael Cheenath and his office, and they in turn informed others, including Dr John Dayal in New Delhi. Dr John Dayal and others immediately informed the national media in New Delhi and Mumbai. But it was Christmas Eve and news planners were focused on the celebratory and commercial aspects of the holiday season. The event did not get the coverage it deserved.

Church and civil society groups however were alerted, in swift order, the offices of the prime minister, president and union home minister were informed, as was the office of the chief minister of Orissa. The prime minister was not initially available but a delegation called on union Home Minister Shivraj Patil on December 27, 2007. President Pratibha Patil was met by the bishop of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and eventually Archbishop Cheenath and Archbishop Vincent Concessao of Delhi met the prime minister. Two public rallies and candlelight vigils were taken out in New Delhi as also in Mumbai, Bhubaneswar and other cities.

At those rallies it was decided that the facts of Kandhamal had to be ascertained in detail and without bias.

At a meeting of Christian and other activist groups in Bhubaneswar the fact-finding group was set up. The fact-finding team consisted of:

1. John Dayal, member, National Integration Council, Government of India, senior editor and political columnist and well-known national human rights activist with experience in many people’s tribunals and fact-finding missions.

2. Nicholas Barla, lawyer and human rights expert from Rourkela with experience in police and social conflicts in the state.

3. Hemant Nayak, social scientist and human rights and development activist, Bhubaneswar.

The team was facilitated by many persons at various stages.

The team made two visits to the district. The first visit was aborted at the Phulbani offices of the police superintendent on December 29, 2007 after having visited affected churches and convents in some of the areas. The second visit took place from January 1 to the night of January 3, 2008 and covered almost every affected area barring one.

It is important to record the circumstances of the first visit. We believe that truth must prevail and that facts, if unearthed early, naturally quell doubts and ensure that rumours are not given currency.

We noted in our press statement in Bhubaneswar on December 30, 2007: "I report with deep sorrow and anguish that I and a five member fact-finding team that had gone to the Phulbani area of Kandhamal district on Saturday, December 29, 2007, was forcibly expelled by inspector general of police, Pradeep Kapoor, who ordered the Phulbani town police inspector to ensure that I left the district that night. The town police inspector then made us follow an armed police escort for a one and a half hour drive in the dark of night until we reached the border of Ganjam district, where he left us. We could return to Bhubaneswar by 4 a.m. today, December 30, 2007, deeply distressed and feeling very frustrated with the experience.

"The fact-finding team was set up at a meeting of activists in the Swosti Hotel in Bhubaneswar on December 28, 2007, to get an authentic first-hand account of the developments and the violence in Kandhamal district because rumours, absence of authentic media reports and often inaccurate government accounts of the casualties had left people confused. There were also fears that lack of authentic information would impact on the confidence-building measures and the peace process. I was requested to lead the fact-finding team in view of my experience in Gujarat, Nandigram, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, the North-east.

"As a matter of abundant precaution, I wrote to the director general of police, Orissa, on December 28, 2007. I, inter alia, said ‘I am a member of the National Integration Council, Government of India, and the national president of the All India Catholic Union. I am part of a fact-finding team set up by civil society and human rights groups to assess the situation in the violence affected areas of Orissa for us to be able to formulate a people’s initiative for confidence-building and peace. The team, consisting of six persons including me, intends to leave Bhubaneswar on the morning of December 29, 2007 and return on the evening of December 31, 2007. We will have a night halt in Phulbani. We will appreciate any assistance and facilitation we can get from the Orissa police and in particular from the police forces of the district. I am sure your office will take the necessary steps and inform the district police of the area.’

"We drove to Phulbani on December 29, reaching safely and without any problems by about 5 p.m. En route we were able to assess the damage done to the NISSWAS School of Social Work set up by Dr RK Nayak, IAS retired, and currently a member of parliament, Rajya Sabha. We also saw the damage done to the Carmelite convent and the Carmel English School. Nuns we interviewed told us how attempts were made to set the convent on fire even as the nuns were cowering in a room they had locked themselves in. Two sisters who could escape injured themselves in the process.

"Later, we went to the offices of the police superintendent to discuss with them our onward journey to Balliguda that evening or early next morning and to see if there was need for curfew passes which are normally given to media and other groups. The inspector general of police, Mr Kapoor, the divisional commissioner and the deputy inspector general of police were present in the room. I was questioned in some detail, always very politely, by Mr Kapoor who wanted to know about my membership with the NIC, my credentials as a journalist and the books I had authored. He also photographed my colleagues and me with his mobile telephone camera. I gave a patient reply to every single question. I also pointed out that this was not a government inquiry but that I would prepare a report I would submit to the authorities and which would also help facilitate the National Minority Commission members who were scheduled to visit the spot on January 6, 2008. I reminded the police we were a peaceful group and our team included an advocate apart from interpreters with expertise in ethnic studies.

"Mr Kapoor was ever polite but remained adamant. My colleagues felt they were being interrogated in a police station. Mr Kapoor said he would not allow me to proceed or even to remain in Phulbani. He said it would not be safe for me or for the persons with whom I would stay. He said the Rapid Action Force had been deployed in Phulbani town and I had to draw my inference from this fact about the situation and tension in the place. I told him there was no way we would be crashing police barriers. It was not for fear of our lives but in deference to the rule of law that we would go. He was apparently not satisfied. He called the Phulbani police officers and ordered them to escort me out.

"The Kandhamal region needs not just media coverage and government relief operations. The rescue, relief and rehabilitation programme has to be done in a transparent manner. Already there have been too many complaints of police and administrative apathy, complicity and even aggressive force against one community, the victim community. Independent fact-finding teams and the information they give help in maintaining transparency and positively contribute to the peace process. I hope we will be able to visit and record the situation in every affected village as an important part of building long-term peace, harmony, and in ensuring relief, compensation and rehabilitation. – John Dayal"

We are very happy the fact-finding team could visit the Kandhamal region again from January 1, 2008, without police escort, without police protection, without official cooperation and with no help other than the goodwill of all people – Christians and Hindus alike.

(Non-government white paper on the violence in Kandhamal district, Orissa: A preliminary report of the fact-finding team led by Dr John Dayal, which visited Kandhamal district, Orissa, on December 29, 2007 and from January 1 to January 3, 2008. Released at Bhubaneswar, January 5, 2008.)

Archived from Communalism Combat, January 2008 Year 14    No.127, Cover Story 1

The post Christmas mourning appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Waiting for justice

“Aaj bhi ham hamare mukkam par nahi ja ke rah sakte (Even today we cannot go back to where we belong).”

– Aiyubmiya, eye-witness to the massacre where 33 persons from Sardarpura village, Mehsana were killed in 2002. The village his family had lived in for decades is no more their home.

“Jab ham bach ke nikle, aath ghante ke baad, aur laash aur laash hamare ghar ke chabootre par giri hui thi; jakar kaanpte kaanpte ham police van me baithe, toh policewale ne kaha, ‘kya itne log bach gaye hai, kya? Hamne socha sab khatm hue!’ (When we escaped with our lives after eight hours of brutal targeting, there was a row of corpses outside our house. Trembling, we got into the waiting police van when a policeman in uniform said, ‘What! So many saved! We thought all would be finished!’).”

– Zakiabehn Jaffri, wife of former parliamentarian Ahsan Jaffri.

“Mere bees saal ke bacche ko police ne nanga kar ke bithaya, peeth mod kar, goliyan mar mar kar police ne khatm kiya… Maine socha tha ki badle mein bandook uthaoon magar phir socha ke nirdosh ko maar kar kya phayda? Aaj bhi hamara case waise hee pada hai, sessions court mein. (My 20-year-old boy was made to strip. The police bent him over and then pumped bullets into him… I thought of picking up the gun in revenge but then I thought what good would killing innocents bring? My case still drags on in the sessions court).”

– Zahid Kadri, a father.

(Survivors’ Speak, meeting organised by Communalism Combat, Citizens for Justice and Peace and SAHMAT, New Delhi, April 16, 2005).

The criminal trial in six major massacres were stayed by the Supreme Court on November 21, 2003 after about 60 victims who are also eye-witnesses filed affidavits in the apex court of India detailing how the investigation into this massacre was being consciously subverted by the Gujarat police and witnesses continually threatened. Though 18 months have passed since the stay and several dates of hearing come and gone, the plea for reinvestigation and transfer is still pending before the apex court.

On May 2, 2002, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) filed a petition through citizens of Gujarat in the Supreme Court of India requesting that the CBI, not the Gujarat police, investigate the major massacres. This was also a key recommendation made by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in its reports, March-July 2002, on the genocide. Three years later, this petition too is pending disposal before the apex court. With due respect, the three major acquittals – including the Best Bakery (in Vadodara), the Kidiad (where 61 persons were burnt alive in two tempos at Limbadiya Chowki in Sabarkantha district), and Pandharwada (where over 45 persons were massacred in two separate incidents in a village in Panchmahal district) massacre cases – may not have resulted if key recommendations made by the NHRC, which included investigation by the CBI into major carnage cases and trials by special courts, had been followed in these cases.

A detailed report, ‘Gujarat –Three Years Later’ is currently being compiled by Communalism Combat. Our preliminary investigations reveal that on a rough estimate about 61,000 persons continue to be internally displaced within the state.

Included among them are key witnesses of the major massacres, who even today cannot go back to their villages or localities simply because they have chosen to fight for justice. Many are both victims of the massacre and key eye-witnesses.

The large majority of the internally displaced were small minority groups scattered across many of Gujarat’s 18,000 villages. They have had to surrender their homes and petty landholdings in return for a life of penury-struck refugees. This is the stark and shameful reality of Gujarat, where even the political Opposition has stopped addressing issues arising out of a State-sponsored pogrom and where the perpetrators continue in seats of power and influence.

The large majority of the internally displaced have had to surrender their homes and petty landholdings in return for a life of penury-struck refugees. This is the stark and shameful reality of Gujarat, where even the political Opposition has stopped addressing issues arising out of a State-sponsored pogrom and where the perpetrators continue in seats of power and influence

Eye-witnesses who are also victims include survivors of the Gulberg massacre (February 28, 2002) where 68 persons were slaughtered including former MP Ahsan Jaffri and 10-15 girls and women subjected to brutal sexual violence; Naroda Gaon and Patiya (February 28, 2002) where over 120 persons were similarly ravaged while a complicit police and elected representatives watched and led mobs respectively; Sardarpura (March 1-3, 2002) where 33 persons were brutally killed in one incident while 14 were burnt alive in the second); and the Ode killings in Anand district (March 1-3, 2002) in which a total of 27 persons were killed. All of them continue to suffer and sacrifice for their decision to struggle for justice. Many eye-witnesses, like a key witness from Naroda Gaon and his family members, have been penalised three or four times with false criminal cases being slapped against them. The attempt is clearly to intimidate all those who stand for the struggle for justice. Recent reports highlighting attempts to target citizens and human rights defenders who support the struggle only underline the state of affairs in Gujarat today.

If there is one thing that the onerous struggle for justice has shown, it is this: For justice to be finally ensured at least in case of the major incidents of carnage let alone the hundreds of crimes that took place in Gujarat in 2002, the struggle for justice needs strong support from State agencies. But in reality, three years after the horrors in which they lost their near and dear ones, key witnesses of the major incidents of violence cannot even step into their villages or localities simply because they have chosen the path of justice.

Further, the conduct of the state of Gujarat through the ongoing Best Bakery re-trial being conducted in Mumbai (see accompanying story) is far removed from that of a prosecutor state committed to ensuring justice. Apart from the questionable role of the Gujarat state in the Best Bakery case, the sheer brazenness of its conduct can be gauged from its decision to reappoint the controversial public prosecutor in the Best Bakery case, Raghuvir Pandya, allegedly a VHP sympathiser, as Vadodara’s district government pleader. Pandya, who was indicted by the Supreme Court for acting “more as a defence counsel than a public prosecutor” in its historic verdict transferring the Best Bakery case to Maharashtra on April 12, 2003 (see Communalism Combat, April 2005), is now back as state counsel and will again plead the government’s case if any of the communal riot cases are reopened!

Clearly undeterred by the spotlight of the apex court, the Gujarat government has appointed another allegedly active BJP member, MD Pandya, as special public prosecutor in a case related to Radhanpur town of Patan district where many BJP heavyweights like Radhanpur BJP MLA Shankar Chaudhary, former president of Radhanpur municipal council Pravin Thakkar, president of Radhanpur municipal borough Prakash Kumar Thakkar and member of the district BJP medical cell Dr. Jyotindra Raval were all implicated as accused in the case.

The attitude of the Gujarat state headed by chief minister Narendra Modi who was re-elected by 51 per cent of the Gujarati electorate in December 2002, nine months after masterminding the pogrom, has been understood and absorbed nationwide. What escapes public attention is the realisation that even three years later there is absolutely no remorse or regret for what had been orchestrated in February/March-May 2002. If Modi is relatively silent today, it is only because of the legal battles in which his state is embroiled despite his best efforts.

At the ground level his brigands carry on unashamed. At Desar village of Vadodara district on April 10, 2005, as hundreds of villagers watched in the presence of BJP MP Jayaben Thakkar, local MLA Upendrasinh Gohil and VHP leaders, two Swaminarayan sadhus unveiled the bust of Vakhatsinh Ramansinh Parmar. The inscription on the marble plaque under the bust read: “This memorial is to honour Ram Sevak Vakhatsinh Ramansinh Parmar who laid down his life in the attacks in retaliation to the killing of 58 karsevaks on the Sabarmati Express in Godhra on February 27, 2002. Parmar was killed in police firing on March 1, 2002, third Friday, Vikram Samvat, 2058”. Parmar was, according to police records, part of a mob that torched Muslim properties and attacked the police when the police was trying to save properties from being torched. He was named as an accused in the case. This is the first time that a riot accused has been publicly felicitated in Gujarat albeit posthumously. The function was organised by the VHP. The local MLA and MP did not find anything wrong in erecting a memorial for a mob leader in a village where Muslims form 30 per cent of the population. “This is a fitting tribute to the youth for his sacrifices for the cause of Hindutva,” Thakkar told The Deccan Herald. Asked about the incident, minister of state for Home Amit Shah said: “One is always innocent till he is convicted.”

An apt illustration of the perversion of values within the political class in Gujarat.

Political campaign

If justice is to prevail, a necessary condition for this must be created through the dismissal of the Modi government under Article 356 of the Constitution, say constitutional experts like Shanti Bhushan.

There is legitimate apprehension among many about the use of Article 356, lest it set a precedent for the Centre to get rid of governments in Opposition-ruled states. But the Gujarat case is an exceptional one in so much as the state government has been seriously implicated by the NHRC and even the Supreme Court, in what are perhaps the most inhuman, horrendous and unconstitutional acts in the history of post-Independence India. In the past few months, courageous statements by serving police officers have echoed the outrage earlier expressed by these apex institutions and hundreds of groups and individuals. Statements by serving policemen that have been made public clearly show that orders were issued by none less than the present chief minister Narendra Modi that minorities who resist or protest be exterminated. Put together, the imposition of Article 356 in Gujarat is warranted not only on grounds of humanity and constitutional propriety, but also for the maintenance of the country’s unity, integrity and secular fabric.

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 2005 Year 11    No.108, Cover Story 1

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