[sacw] SACW | 21 June 02

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire Dispatch | 21 June 2002

South Asia Citizens Web:
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

South Asians Against Nukes:
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/NoNukes.html

__________________________

#1. armies, Indian and Pakistani, are still facing across the
border, ready to pounce on each other and accidental escalation remains
possible... (M.B. Naqvi)
#2. The smugness displayed by Indian and Pakistani policy-makers and=20
strategic "experts" about a possible nuclear conflagration bodes ill=20
for South Asia. (Praful Bidwai)
#3. Statement re. daily war of words between India and Pakistan=20
(Eduardo Faleiro)
#4. Resolutions Passed In The 'Communal Harmony'Meeting
#5. India faces the classic situation of a pre-fascist upheaval. (Aijaz Ah=
mad)
#6. While patriotic India is busy in its jingoism, the victims of the=20
continuing genocide in Gujarat are rotting. (Shabnam Hasmi )

__________________________

#1.

M.B. Naqvi
Karachi June 20

Although the two armies, Indian and Pakistani, are still facing across the
border, ready to pounce on each other and accidental escalation remains
possible, the situation is one in which it looks reasonably sure that the
de-escalatory steps will continue. Eventually there would have to be a
series of dialogues. There is therefore no threat of reversion to the kind
of tension that India and Pakistan, indeed the whole of South Asia, have
lived through during the last six months. The question arises about what
next.

As it happens, the Indian government, in terms of its bottomline ---
permanent cessation of what it called 'cross-border terrorism' --- has
received adequate satisfaction. Richard Armitage, the US Under Secretary of
State, extracted the required assurances from President Pervez Musharraf
and conveyed them to India. The BJP-led government has won the trophy
without actually having to fight the war, as indeed Mr. Atal Behari
Vajpayee has claimed. Although the problem will not go away, in terms of
both the contention between India and Pakistan and trouble between the
unhappy Kashmiris and the Indian government, the formulation that has
averted the threat of war and the two sides will have no compelling reason
to rush to the barricades. Statesmanship will still be required, though.

That the imminent threat of two nuclear power clashing over Kashmir
insurgency has ended is something to celebrate, though the road to
normalisation of things between India and Pakistan may still be long and
arduous. What can, and perhaps will, make for trouble is that absence of
war does not automatically mean peace between these two countries. The mind
sets that drive so many Indians and Pakistanis to hate each other and clash
at every step are not only still there, they are growing bitter. Indeed the
typical representatives of these clashing mind sets are in power in the two
countries, one representing the Hindutva philosophy that is imbued with the
protest against perceived Muslim domination of India in the past mixed with
intimations of communal hatred, on one side, and the other side is moved by
Militant Islamic Nationalism that is difficult in tolerance.

That is not to say that the change of governments is not likely in either
country. Indeed, ideologies based on basically divisive ideas, are
pervasive in both countries and people with similar minds come under
different labels. Since that is all too possible, maybe likely, the threat
of the two nuclear countries clashing on some other issue(s) cannot be
ignored. At any rate, relations between the two countries remain disturbed
and militaristic trends are likely to remain strong so long as positive
peacemaking efforts do not make headway. As long as India and Pakistan
cannot make peace, the whole of South Asia is likely to remain
intellectually and politically at sixes and sevens. The region will count
for nothing in the world except as a vast ghetto of poverty, hunger,
disease, illiteracy and various other ills.

This underlines the need for peace. Happily, it can be said with some
confidence that there is no real dearth of people of goodwill in both
countries that want peacemaking to proceed and who would provide
sustainable support to peace-making efforts. But who has to initiate these
efforts? Unfortunately the lesson to be learnt from the last 55 years of
history is that the governments in India and Pakistan, left to themselves,
will not be able to make peace or work together. Peace in such populous
countries with bitter quarrels cannot be made or promoted by outside powers
either; the very notion is zany. The fact of the matter is that only the
people, the non-officials, who can make peace. What is thus indicated is a
truly popular peace movements in not merely Pakistan and India but also in
the whole of South Asian regions.

The initiative has to be taken by independent minded citizens of goodwill
who believe in human freedoms and human equality. Such humanists have to
take the initiative without waiting for or expecting the governments to
help. It is however unlikely that the governments can openly oppose peace
movements. But the influence of vested interests on them can be expected to
make them unhelpful to such movements. They are likely to adopt a
sophisticated but basically unsympathetic attitude and may not be above
creating misunderstandings and fissures in the movements. It may make the
task of peace promoters somewhat more difficult. They will have to be wary.
But if the effort, goodwill and determination is there, peace movements can
grow and even succeed before long.

But the process must be understood. It may be a truism but it is necessary
to state that absence of war does not equal peace. The requirements of
peace have to be understood and worked for. Mere avowals of the sentiment
against war and horror of its possible destruction is not the be all and
end all of peace. Doubtless the threat of wide-ranging destruction of a
most horrific kind and mass slaughter of not merely humans but also of
other living creatures including mother earth, and its flora and fauna,
should a war break out in which nuclear weapons might be used provides
strong motivation. Indeed the first requirement of peace in South Asia is a
credible assurance that the nuclear weapons shall not be used. This is in
fact the primary condition of peacemaking in South Asia.

The actions of the two governments have shown that nuclear weapons,
acquired and maintained at great cost, can only be for eventual use. The
talk of these being the currency of power and the influence these weapons
are supposed to confer may not be altogether immaterial. These were
acquired by both India and Pakistan for specific purposes. So long as they
exist, in conjunction with the mind sets that promote division and clashes,
peacemaking will remain an aspiration. It may be difficult, horribly
difficult, to render these weapons totally harmless. The only way to render
them harmless is to destroy them scientifically. The task may be forbidding
but it is essential. Let us stay a while on nuclear weapons and missiles.

A whole mythology has been advanced that once developed, the Bomb cannot be
disinvented. Well, this is nonsense. Gas weapons have actually been
disinvented; international campaigns are on to banish the chemical,
biological and other mass destruction weapons --- the poor man's atomic
arsenal --- and the outlook for their success is credibly good. So, why
nuclear weapons cannot be outlawed and destroyed? US reliance on these
weapons for its leadership role can delay the process for sometime --- but
not for ever.

But local vested interests --- bureaucracy, generals, vendor industries and
not to forget the "experts" --- will certainly oppose nuclear disarmament
tooth and nail. They will go on creating war-like crises from time to time
by exploiting communal hatreds. What is however true is that they also
advocate the elusive goal of an Indo-Pakistan nuclear d=E9tente. However, s=
o
much divides the ruling elites of India and Pakistan that a limited set of
nuclear understandings are not likely to succeed nor will last, if they
somehow can roughhew a d=E9tente.

What is practical is actual nuclear disarmament but on one condition: each
country has to disarm unilaterally for its own reasons under the
compulsions of local peace movement combined with the progress of a genuine
people-to-people reconciliation. It need not be simultaneous nuclear
disarmament. The effort will involve needless extra labour; disarming for
the sake of another state's goodwill can not be a strong enough motive.
Abjuring mass destruction weapons only makes sense when they are seen as
superfluous or dangerous. A general international outlawing is the only
other likely occasion.

The first lesson of the six-months long crisis is that the two countries
had all but gone to war. That actually large-scale shooting and the use of
dreaded weapons did not take place is a fortunate stance. Thanks for it
have to be distributed among the world media, the major powers and a
measure of fear about the consequences in the top leadership of the two
countries. India certainly won a victory without a physical fight thanks to
the various vulnerabilities of Pakistan --- among them was being prone to
foreign pressures. All these circumstances may not always be present in the
required measure or something might yet go wrong, as it could easily have
gone wrong in the last six months. It is a sobering but instructive thought
that ever since May 1998 test explosions the two countries have been on war
path except for two euphoric interludes of Lahore Process and a day or two
at Agra.

The Indians who go beyond the militant nationalistic goal of making India a
great power in the classical sense and prefer the humanistic idea of making
India a shining example of social progress and making it a beacon of light
for others through peaceful and peaceable accomplishments will need to work
for creating suitable structures that can sustain peace. Peace is nothing
if not the effort to make all (without distinction) enjoy the full range of
fundamental human rights. Needless to say making of all human rights
available to all the citizens without discrimination itself calls for the
achievement of one of the critically important elements: religious
tolerance and a bent of mind that prefers argument to violence. Human
rights are not merely the classical civil liberties. Let us go back a
little in time to 1941. In the summer of that year Winston Churchill and
Franklin Roosevelt met somewhere in Atlantic and issued the Atlantic
Charter. The Charter wanted to remove human wants. One of the four freedoms
it advocated was freedom from hunger or economic security. Let us not deny
this freedom from want or poverty to the peoples of India and Pakistan.

Time was when Britain and America recognised this right to economic
security for every citizen without distinction. Later, when after the 1948
Charter of Human Rights was passed, another UN Charter was passed for the
economic and social rights and 25 states signed and ratified it. It
recognised the right to gainful employment for all able bodied adults
willing to work, or some compensatory payments in lieu thereof. Cold war
conditions intervened and the western powers did not recognise and ratify
that Charter. But it is there. It is about time that the people of India
and Pakistan wake up to the need for making their countries Mahan in the
sense of preventing hunger, disease and illiteracy from their land and
through cultural enrichment.

This would necessitate assigning the highest priority to economic
development of a kind that can employ all the people --- or as many as
possible. Let the remaining unemployed be paid a social security allowance.
An economic effort to employ the maximum possible people will catapult
South Asians into an amazing trajectory of growth. That can lay a solid
foundation of a greatness that will be welcome to all and can be shared
with others in the region.=20

South Asians can borrow and adopt many necessary structures of peace from
the successor of Helsinki conference in Europe. These structures by
themselves will not produce peace, though they are essential for sustaining
it, if there is an impulse for it. Where the impulse for peace to come
from? That can come from the coming together of the peoples. A
people-to-people reconciliation between the Indians and Pakistanis should
be the starting point and it should later be extended to the rest of South
Asia. The motive force for peace and progress will almost automatically
emerge from organised efforts to promote a people-to-people reconciliation.
The peace movements can study and adapt the methodology used by Germany and
France for a similar reconciliation in the postwar Europe.

Let us not forget that a people-to-people reconciliation between the people
of France and Germany did not remain or was not allowed to remain confined
to France and Germany. It became a nucleus for European unity. In the case
of India-Pakistan reconciliation, it cannot but extend to the rest of South
Asia. A more meaningful look into the European history of the last 50 years
or more will underline the dynamics that comes into force when
people-to-people reconciliation proceeds and expands. It does so in
peaceful directions. In Europe economic cooperation and free trade was the
natural corollary of the Franco-German reconciliation.

It is not hard to see what can be accomplished in South Asia. Only, it
cannot be achieved by governments that are prisoners of their doctrines and
world views based on nothing nobler than powerpolitics and dictates of
various interests. Peace has to be made by and for the people. South Asia
has given a jolt to the rest of the world by underlining the threat of a
nuclear war which was all too real. The rest of the world is sure to look
upon genuine popular peace movements with sympathy. They had better be
joint by and for Pakistan and India. International sympathy, especially of
the expatriate Pakistanis and Indians, can be a source of strength.

_____

#2.

Frontline
Volume 19 - Issue 13, Jun. 22 - Jul. 5, 2002
COLUMN

Nuclear ostriches all?

The smugness displayed by Indian and Pakistani policy-makers and=20
strategic "experts" about a possible nuclear conflagration bodes ill=20
for South Asia.

Praful Bidwai

WITH something like a half-thaw in India-Pakistan relations after the=20
visits of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Defence=20
Secretary Donald Rums- feld, there is a great deal of=20
self-congratulation in New Delhi. Some commentators have unleashed a=20
campaign of triumphalism, claiming that a combination of "wisdom" and=20
"strategic shrewdness" based on a "calibrated" armed threat enabled=20
India to get the better of Pakistan and secure a solemn commitment=20
from General Pervez Musharraf to end "permanently" cross-border=20
infiltration of jehadi militants into Kashmir. There are exhortations=20
that India should now press its advantage and make further demands=20
upon Musharraf, while making it clear that it is in no hurry to=20
discuss the Kashmir issue with Pakistan - at least not till the=20
elections to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly are held.

New Delhi's insistence that it will not demobilise troops=20
concentrated along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir till the=20
Assembly elections due in October - and that troop withdrawal from=20
the international border be made strictly conditional upon verifiable=20
and irreversible progress in dismantling the "infrastructure" behind=20
cross-border infiltration - is being presented not just as a sign of=20
caution, but as a significant step related to the main objective in=20
India's evolving Kashmir policy.

Indian policy-makers are being urged not only to isolate=20
"pro-Pakistani elements" in Kashmir, but take a "firm" stand against=20
any dialogue with the Hurriyat Conference ahead of the Assembly=20
elections. ("Kashmir policy in place, finally", The Hindustan Times,=20
June 11). Thus, the government "is expected to open up channels for=20
reconciliation and accommodation after the installation of a new=20
government in the State. This could include discussions on greater=20
autonomy and greater decentralisation."

The apparent hardening of the official stand on Kashmir is reflected=20
in the detention of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and earlier, of Jammu and=20
Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Yasin Malik, under the=20
Prevention of Terrorism Act. The message being sent out is that the=20
terms of political contestation in Kashmir have changed in India's=20
favour and that all concerned must acknowledge this.

It needs no great wisdom to see the folly of such a hardline policy=20
precisely at a time when many political currents are opening up to=20
the idea of participating in the Kashmir elections, and Abdul Gani=20
Lone's assassination has produced some sympathy for moderate views=20
which do not reject reconciliation and dialogue with the Indian=20
state. New Delhi may squander this opportunity if it takes a "tough"=20
approach.

Underlying this approach is triumphalism over India's successful=20
"coercive diplomacy" vis-a-vis Pakistan, backed by a ratcheted-up=20
threat of war, with 700,000 soldiers massed along the border. India,=20
it is claimed, rightly defied global appeals for "restraint" and=20
determinately stared down Pakistan. That is why Musharraf agreed to=20
end cross-border infiltration. A related proposition is that India=20
made a "well-thought-out attempt" to get Pakistan's - and=20
Washington's - attention. This attempt was "to make threats that are=20
utterly believable. To be convincing to others (the strategy) had to=20
be so real that even we believe that we are heading for war."

This view is dangerously mistaken. It is not New Delhi, but=20
Washington, that made Islamabad blink. Pakistan was not frightened by=20
the demonstration of India's military prowess, but realised it was=20
isolated and could not withstand American pressure to concede the=20
demand of withdrawing support to jehadi militants. Washington=20
intervened rapidly because towards the end of May the threat of an=20
India-Pakistan military confrontation seemed real; this would have a=20
high potential for escalation to the nuclear level.

[ Full Text at : http://www.flonnet.com/fl1913/19130300.htm]

_____

#3.

[ a statement from Eduardo Faleiro, Member of Parliament and India's=20
former Minister of State for External Affairs re. daily war of words=20
between India and Pakistan.]

o o o

To
The Editor/Chief of Bureau

June 20, 2002
STATEMENT

Last Monday, General Parvez Musharraf claimed that=20
Pakistan's nuclear deterrence had stopped India from attacking that=20
country. On Tuesday, our Ministry of External Affairs accused=20
Musharraf of "loose talk" and "continued concoction of the doomsday=20
theory". On Wednesday, Presidential candidate Dr. Abdul Kalam, who=20
is better qualified than anybody else to speak on the subject,=20
admitted that "the nuclear deterrent on both sides had helped not to=20
engage in a big war and to avoid a nuclear war".

Indeed, the thoughtless nuclear policy of the present=20
Government has nullified the advantage of our overwhelming=20
conventional weapons superiority, brought into play the MAD principle=20
of Mutually Assured Destruction of both countries in the event of an=20
armed conflict and reduced any possible war to a zero-sum game where=20
there can only be loosers and no winners.

The two Governments should stop forthwith their daily war=20
of words which has demeaned both the countries and made them the=20
laughing stock of the international community. The two Governments=20
should instead address themselves with a sense of utmost urgency to=20
the task of eliminating religious extremism and the consequent=20
terrorism which threatens the very existence of both India and=20
Pakistan.

(EDUARDO FALEIRO)

_____

#7.

Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 15:07:10 +0530
From: seetharaman subramanian <tssmani50@y...>
To: chief secratary tamilnadu govt. <cs@t...>

MANITHA NEYA IYAKKAM

THE RESOLUTIONS PASSED IN THE 'COMMUNAL HARMONY'MEETING HELD AT=20
STELLA MARIS COLLEGE ON 17-06-02

APPEAL TO GOVT.
1. The following slogans to be propagated by the state and the central govt=
.s
"Let us defeat Religious Fanaticism"
Let us Cultivate Religious Harmony"
"Let us remove Religious Antagonism"
" Let up upgrade Humanism"
" Let us separate Religion from Politics"
"Let us create secularism"
2. The state Govt. of Gujarat should implement the recommendations=20
and suggestions of National Human Rights Commission on the findings=20
of the Gujarat Atrocities. Especially, the recommendations regarding=20
violence, massacre, rape,demolition of religious places, demolition=20
of shops, burning people alive, riot, refugee camps, registration of=20
cases, instigation of religious fanaticism, compensation, relief and=20
rehabilitation should be given priority and to be implemented=20
immediately.

3. The immediate implementation of these recommendations is necessary=20
to bring back the real peace by changing the graveyard silence and=20
terrorised state. If the Gujarat Govt. delays on them, the President=20
should take steps for the immediate implementation of the NHRC=20
recommendations.

4. The state Govt. of Tamil Nadu should promote propaganda on=20
religious harmony to alleviate the growing fear of religious=20
intolerance, suspicion and fear that create divisions among people.

APPEAL TO PEOPLE

5. Religion is the personal right of people and it should not be used=20
for glamorous politics by instilling violence. By considering the=20
past experience, people should avoid religious processions like=20
Vinayagar jayanthi, miladenabi and religious meetings in beach=20
seerani arangam. Govt, should not encourage such activits.

6. People should boycott the politicians who capitalise religion for=20
their power

7. People get educated about the spiritual teachings devoid of=20
religious identity like Vallalar, siddars. Govt. also should take=20
efforts on this.

8 'Atheism' should be recognised as a school of thought and to be=20
debated in media and by the Govt.

9. Nuclear war is totally against humanity. This truth should be=20
taught in the educational institutions. We should cooperate the=20
global efforts on total ban of the Nuclear weapons that'll reduce=20
humanity, flora and fauna.

_____

#5.

Frontline
Volume 19 - Issue 13, Jun. 22 - Jul. 5, 2002
ESSAY

Cry, the beloved country

Today India faces the classic situation of a pre-fascist upheaval.=20
What used to be the political centre has collapsed, with the Congress=20
reduced to a parliamentary minority and all the rest so splintered as=20
to be assimilated as small ineffectual groupings into support for the=20
fascist project.

AIJAZ AHMAD
http://www.flonnet.com/fl1913/19131140.htm

_____

#6.

>From Shabnam Hasmi (in New Delhi)
20 Jun 2002

Makan Kuan, Godhra, May 25th, 2002 3am -Little Wasim was fast asleep=20
when the policeman dragged him out of his bed, held the six year old=20
down by the neck and beat him hard on his back with the rifle butt,=20
then threw him back and started hitting on his legs.

Vatva, Ahmedabad, March 20,2002, 5.15pm- 18 year old Mumtaz bano=20
Darbar, one leg affected by Polio, sat on a charpai, outside her=20
house in Vatva. Shot and wounded in the other leg by police from arms=20
length.

Mr Modi has waited too long for the Muslims to retaliate. The Sangh=20
Parivar's rumours all over Gujarat proved to be false. So what is the=20
best way out?

Modi administration is busy right now engineering the 'Muslim backlash'.

While no attempts are being made to answer very important questions=20
surrounding Godhra, the nation is very cleverly being fooled again=20
and again. Are we to forget that the Reichstag was burnt to the=20
ground in 'mysterious circumstances'=92 27th February, 1933 by Hitler's=20
orders and executed by Hitler's followers, which gave Hitler the=20
perfect excuse to declare marshal law, and tighten his grip on power.=20
At the same time the event was used to create paranoia among the=20
government, the media and the populace.

Didn=92t the Sangh Parivar made everyone believe that SAHMAT denigrated=20
Ram by publishing some posters in 1993. The whole Parliament, the=20
media was up in arms. It took SAHMAT eight years to fight and win the=20
case.

How many years will it take us to answer: why all the 57 bodies were=20
in the middle of the bogey S 6? Why does the S 6 reservation chart=20
shows 21 women and 5 children and the women and children charred to=20
death are 25 and 14 respectively. Where did they appear from? If the=20
argument is that there were more people who were in the bogey than=20
the chart shows then there should have been more men too. Where are=20
they?

Why did the Kar Sevaks collect stones in the bogey much before it=20
reached Godhra? Why did a large number of them got down a few=20
stations before Godhra? Why is the floor of S 6 totally gutted and=20
why the fans at the top intact? Is this Petrol burning?

Why did the children and women not shout for help? Were they drugged=20
or killed before being charred? Is it not true that on 27th late=20
afternoon printed leaflets were distributed around Godhra asking the=20
Hindus to rise as their Hindu sisters were raped and killed by Muslim=20
men? When were these leaflets printed? Is it not true that cars full=20
of swords arrived in many areas 10-15 days before Godhra?

These are questions, which even a dumb person can raise after=20
visiting Godhra and making very preliminary investigations and having=20
a look at the bogey. Do we not have any investigation agencies in the=20
country to answer these questions?

Is there no logic in the fact that the Sangh Parivar despite trying=20
their best to rouse people's passions on Ayodhya lost four states,=20
that they couldn't mobilize a 'decent' crowd in Ayodhya for the=20
shiladan, that the Sangh Parivar badly needed a Godhra.

The purpose of my three-day visit which turned into a ten day tour of=20
more than 25 villages and districts was not to document this. I was=20
about to leave for a village near Godhra when someone casually=20
mentioned to me about the cold- blooded murder of a 63 year old man=20
by the police in Makan Kuan, Godhra. I decided to immediately go and=20
meet the family, which could not even file an FIR as Godhra was under=20
curfew.

Sitting in front of the six year old Wasim Akram and looking into his=20
beautiful, deep and very sad eyes, his innocent face and bruises on=20
his legs and back I wondered again at Gandhi=92s Gujarat.

While Modi's administration makes the whole nation believe that they=20
very successfully controlled the situation in Godhra on May 24th=20
night by firing at the Muslim mob and killing two people and injuring=20
many more, the story is very different. The RSS, the VHP and the=20
whole gang are past masters in fooling the people.

Wasim's grand father Rashid Khan Amir Khan Pathan, 63 yrs old, a=20
retired patwari was not a part of any mob, but was forcibly taken=20
away from his house at 3 in the morning on 25th May, 2002 in a=20
so-called ' combing operation'. He lived in Makan Kuan about a km=20
away from Jahoopura, where the trouble had taken place at 11pm the=20
previous night.

The police which started hammering the door around 3 am, abused and=20
beat up the whole family including 24yr old Arifa, they scratched her=20
hands with nails, beat her up with batons and rifle butts, pulled her=20
by the hair and dragged her on the floor. Jahanara's (27 yrs)=20
two-year old daughter was snatched away from her and thrown in a=20
corner and then the police tore all her clothes and beat her up with=20
rifle butts. Naznin 11 years and Javed 14 yrs were also woken up from=20
their sleep and severely beaten up by the police. Khursheed Bibi the=20
73 year old sister of the deceased was also not spared, barely able=20
to speak to me when I met her, she kept asking for justice.

After the police performed their sacred duty of beating up the whole=20
family and they pushed them in and closed the latch from outside,=20
they pulled 63 year old Rashid Khan Amir Khan Pathan by his collar=20
and took him with them.

Jahanara clearly heard three rounds of firing after sometime. She=20
even saw some blood in the morning near the house but it was only=20
around 5.30 pm when the police asked them to go and identify a body=20
that they realized that the old gentleman was killed in cold blood=20
just a few hundred yards away from their own house.

The police threatened to declare the body as 'lawaris' and burn it if=20
they did not take immediately. The post mortem report was not given.=20
A bullet mark in the forehead and the neck was clearly visible when=20
the family buried the old man.

Very senior people in administration feeling helpless at what had=20
happened actually requested me to talk to the press and ask them to=20
raise it. According to them the whole trouble as started by the son=20
of a BJP corporater in Jahoopura.

When you have successfully convinced your self that you have heard=20
the worst and also you are in no condition mentally and emotionally=20
to hear anything more, you are made to sit up again. This is today=92s=20
Gujarat. I had planned a quick visit to the Vatva relief camp as I=20
was to catch the evening train back to Delhi but the Vatva story=20
forced me again to spend the whole evening in the area.

Around 5.15 pm on 20 March 2002 smokes were found curling up in the=20
Navapura locality of Vatva ( Ahmedabad suburb). The Navapura Muslims=20
had to run for their lives on 28 /2 /2002 and March 1, 2002 and take=20
refuge in the Vatva Durgah Relief camp. They suffered loss of lives=20
and property. The Muslims of Vatva continued to be intimidated .

Seeing the smoke in the Navapura locality, a km away from the camp=20
and the houses just outside the camp many Muslims came out and were=20
standing inside or just outside their houses and looking the smoke=20
which was visible from there. Suddenly armed police personnel=20
appeared and started firing indiscriminately on them.

Farzanabanu Munaver Ali Bukhari was standing inside her house, behind=20
a small iron grill gate, when the police came and fired at her. Then=20
they tried to drag her dead body out of the compound. The women of=20
the surrounded the body and prevented them from taking the body away.=20
The bullet marks on the walls of the house are still visible.=20
Farzana's father preys daily at her grave, which is near the house.

20- year old Sikander Pathan, was shot twice in the chest and=20
according to eye witnesses the policemen kicked him on the face and=20
abdomen even after he was dead. Then the dragged the body by the legs=20
and dumped him in the police jeep.

In the mad rush the polio affected Mumtaz , shot by the police in the=20
second leg kept lying in a corner for a long time, till someone=20
noticed her bleeding leg and took her to the nearby Sonia clinic=20
where the bullet was removed.

While the residents have filed a case in the High Court, still no FIR=20
has been lodged.

While patriotic India is busy in its jingoism, the victims of the=20
continuing genocide are rotting. While Fernandes and Ms. Bharti takes=20
pain to explain to the nation that their are no rape cases, 38 gang=20
raped women in a small village wait for justice. Their complaints not=20
heard, their FIR not lodged. They are constantly jeered at by the=20
rapists who are roaming around freely. A victim of gang rape, now=20
eight months pregnant waits for her FIR to be lodged. The pattern of=20
looting, burning, killing and brutalisation is the same in every=20
district. Can an ordinary villager rape a woman, cut off her breasts,=20
cut off her nose, or cut open her stomach and kill the unborn baby=20
and then burn the woman. Can an ordinary villager strip naked three=20
young girls and force them to run in front of a crowd? These were=20
trained murderers unleashed on the streets of Gujarat by the Sangh=20
Parivar. While the Gujarat civil society keeps mum, the mayhem=20
continues. In a village in Godhra district 188 houses were looted,=20
burn and raised to the ground. While Advani is busy telling the=20
European Union then the victims have been compensated and nothing=20
more needs to be done, the compensation for rebuilding the houses=20
varies from as low as Rs 71 to the average of 3,000-4,000. The=20
villagers are being threatened all over to withdraw their complaints=20
naming any one from VHP, RSS, Bajrang Dal or BJP. They can buy peace=20
for the time being if they are ready to live as second- class=20
citizens and forget everything that happened.

--=20
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