NEW DELHI, March 12 (IslamOnline) - Curfew was completely lifted Tuesday morning from Ahmedabad, the worst affected city in Gujarat during the current bout of anti-Muslim riots. Other cities, like Surat and Vadodra are still affected.

There are reports of continuing violence in the rural areas and tribal belts.

Authorities are keeping a stiff upper lip about the true figures of the casualties. A state official said that "No list has been prepared of those missing." There are allegations that many bodies have been disposed of illegally or cremated.

Tight security is maintained in many parts of Ahmedabad, including the Muslim-majority areas like Dariapur, Shahpur, Mirzapur and Khanpur. Earlier, indefinite curfew was imposed in 20 police station areas of the total 30 after large-scale arson and violence since February 28 following the tragic train incident in Godhra.

Nearly 250 people were burnt alive during the violence in Ahmedabad alone. The total official casualty figure for the state of Gujarat crossed 726 today. Unofficial sources claim that the casualties are around five thousand. Losses due to looting, burning and destruction have yet to be quantified.

According to the victims, licenses and other relevant papers from the civic bodies were used to target the hotels and other business establishments owned by them.

"All my five hotels including 'Renbasera' meant for poor people were attacked, while three other hotels still stood," said a hotelier.

Muslim community people allege that the voters' list was virtually used as a killing tool as the mob went around different localities as part of "cleansing operation". "They hardly failed in laying their hands on their targets, thanks to documents like voters' lists," said a police official adding "the mission was accomplished with clinical precision." "The voters' list has certainly made their task easier and the motivated mob knew exactly who stayed where," said a woman inmate at Sanklitpur relief camp in Johopura. This is for the "first time in the country" violence was carried out using documents like this, said a senior cop on condition of anonymity, reported the Press Trust of India (PTI).

The state government's interim report to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) changed the story about the riots. Hitherto, state officials, starting from Chief Minister Narendra Modi claimed that the riots were 'backlash' and 'reaction' to the Godhra train incident. Modi had quoted Newton's Third Law that for every action there is a reaction. But the first official version sent to the NHRC refuses to call the riots as a "reaction" to what happened at Godhra. It suggests, whatever happened thereafter was an "expected repercussion," though the state did not want them to happen.

The report claims the state government called para-military forces on February 27 itself. Giving reasons for so many deaths during such a short duration, the report says that this time the riots were more wide-spread than any time earlier. They took place in areas of Ahmedabad which were never considered "sensitive" before. The report claims that there was no intelligence failure. The mobs were huge, yet the riots were controlled in the shortest duration, it claims. The Union Home Minister LK Advani has already given clean chit to the Gujarat state government.

Kolkata daily newspaper, The Telegraph, published a detailed report on March 10 by Sujan Dutta, its correspondent in Ahmedabad. "The riots in Gujarat in the wake of the Godhra train carnage on February 27 were not only tacitly backed by the state administration, but chief minister Narendra Modi’s government also gave the VHP/Bajrang Dal stormtroopers 24 hours to do the job," Dutta said.

The violence spilled over to the districts, villages and smaller towns. It continues in small pockets more than a week after the Godhra burnings. That the VHP and the Bajrang Dal have organic linkages with the current rulers of Gujarat is public knowledge.

The Telegraph quotes from a conversation with Kaushik Mehta, one of the two joint general secretaries of the VHP in Gujarat. The conversation took place in the VHP office in Ahmedabad on March 7 and was an hour-long. Mehta wanted the conversation to be kept off the record, but The Telegraph did not make a commitment.

The quoted part of the conversation went as follows:

Mehta: “Let me tell you something off the record. The violence would not have taken place if the secular parties had strongly condemned the attack on the Ramsewaks (temple volunteers).

In particular, till the late-evening of the 27th, we were expecting a condemnation of the attack from the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid. But that did not come. Then it was decided there should be a model for reprisals. It was important to teach a lesson that could be emulated…. We had also sensed that once again the Centre was moving towards blaming the ISI for perpetrating the Godhra attack. All the 2,000 men, women and children could not have been ISI agents".