Hotline Asia Urgent Appeals -- SUA020328(5) |
Restore
Peace in Gujarat
~ INDIA ~
28 March 2002
Action Requested || Sample Letter || Background |
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Summary After the 27 February 2002 incident in Godhra, whereby a Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu radicals returning from Ayodhya, the wave of revenge continued especially in the Hindu-majority state of Gujarat. As a result, minority Muslims fled for their lives and instead live with fear in several relief camps. Gujarat's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State Government is facing severe criticism for the appalling conditions in state-run relief camps for 60,000 Muslims displaced by the large-scale killings, arson and looting by Hindu mobs. NGOs accuse the State Government of discriminating against the victims of violence, mostly Muslims, living in shelters throughout the state. Aid workers say there is an acute shortage of food, cooking oil, sugar and other needs such as medicine, clothes and blankets. Local newspapers reported that each camp, housing about 3,000 people, had only six toilets and people received only 60 grams of wheat a day. Besides food and shelter, aid workers say there is also an urgent need for counselling to help the dispossessed cope with psychological trauma. |
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| Action Requested Please write polite letters to the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission of India to pressurise the State Government of Gujarat to carry out the following:
and voice your support for the setting up a judicial enquiry by a sitting Supreme Court/High Court judge to look into the entire situation and bring the guilty to justice.
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Sample Letter
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Violence Rampage from 27 February 2002 Onwards In Gujarat State (in the western part of India), the violence began late February after a train filled with Hindu radicals returning from a pilgrimage in Ayodhya was set on fire by a Muslim mob, killing 58 Hindus on board. The next day Hindu mobs took to the streets with pistols, knives and cans of kerosene. The ensuing backlash against Muslims has left more than 600 dead, mostly in Gujarat State. The first three weeks of March have brought the worst Hindu-Muslim violence in a decade and outbreaks over the weekend of 23 and 24 March resulted in several more deaths. At least 147 Muslim-owned properties have been destroyed to date. More than 60,000 people were displaced from their homes into makeshift relief camps. Shah Alam in Ahmedabad (the capital of Gujarat) is one of the largest relief camps. The vast majority of the people in this camp are Muslims. A high-level human rights delegation headed by the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Justice J S Verma was in Gujarat recently to investigate the communal violence. The visit occured amid widespread criticism of the State Government for failing to contain the violence. In an interview with the press on his return to New Delhi, Justice Verma criticised the State Government of Gujarat for its "inefficiency" in controlling the recent communal violence in the state. He added that the state was far from normal even three weeks after the first clash between Hindus and Muslims. What is the reason for local concentrations of communal violence? A research in six cities - three riot-prone and three entirely or mostly peaceful - of Ashutosh Varshney, the director of the Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan, suggests that pre-existing local networks of civic engagement between the two communities -- business associations, political parties, trade unions, professional associations, clubs -- stand out as the single most important cause. Where such integrated networks of engagement exist, tensions and conflicts get regulated and managed. Where they are missing, segregated lives lead to ghastly violence. Sources:
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