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Gujarat Riots Culprits To Be Sued For Genocide in Europe
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Anti-Muslim
riots in Gujarat left hundreds dead
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By IOL South Asia correspondent
NEW
DELHI, April 21 (IslamOnline) - Britain-based Gujaratis are working
alongside the British government to bring three cases in courts across
Europe against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other
culprits, Indian daily newspaper, Times of India reported
Sunday, April 21.
The
cases, which are to be filed separately in the British High Court,
Belgian courts and, possibly, the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
in The Hague, are expected to compliment two other proposed cases
against Modi and his administration in India and the US.
The
charges, ranging from complicity with murder to genocide, could,
theoretically, lead to a formal request for Modi's extradition, as
seemed likely when a Belgian court officials recently held preliminary
hearings in a genocide case against the Israeli war criminal Ariel
Sharon for his role in the Sabra and Shatila massacres of 1982.
Belgian law allows its courts to hear cases of war crimes, genocide
and crimes against humanity no matter where they are carried out or by
whom.
The
violence still continues in Gujarat. Many areas still remain under
night curfew. One person was killed Saturday night, April 20, as
police opened fire on a rampaging mob which set ablaze houses and
shops and injured 16 persons in Mehmdabad town of Gujarat's Kheda
district prompting authorities to impose curfew late Saturday night.
Violence
also broke out in Ahmedabad Saturday night. Police opened fire and
lobbed teargas shells in the city's Gomtipur locality against a mob
setting ablaze two houses, hurling petrol bombs and injuring five
persons.
Earlier
Saturday, curfew was clamped in Kapadwanj town after communal violence
broke out over the construction of a wall of a locality in which four
persons were injured. One person was killed and another seriously
injured when police fired to quell the mob. One person was injured in
stabbing incident in Paldi area on Saturday, police said.
Official toll of the state-sponsored violence has crossed 850 since
the violence erupted on February 28 in the wake of the tragic train
incident at Godhra a day earlier.
Prominent
members of the ruling BJP and its affiliates like the VHP and Bajrang
Dal took part in the violence, looting and lynching. Gujarat chief
minister Narendra Modi is seen as the chief architect of the riots.
Sulaiman
Qazi, solicitor and cousin of British national Mohammed Aswat who was
dragged out of his car and lynched near Ahmedabad during the current
riots, says that the British government is cooperating fully in the
preparation of the case, which could be filed in as little as
"four or five weeks." Two of Aswat's companions, Shakil and
Saeed Dawood, are still missing.
Describing
the Gujarat violence as "a crime against humanity and not against
one community," Qazi said he felt the British Foreign Office
(FCO) would support them to the hilt.
"The
FCO has said that high-ranking officials were responsible for the
massacre of innocents and we know that is a statement of support if it
comes to extradition," Qazi told Times of India as he
worked on a "a database consisting of hundreds of eyewitness
accounts, with verifiable names, addresses and contact numbers."
Qazi's
search for "admissible and irrefragable evidence against Modi,
which would prove he had a direct hand in the killing of my
cousin," will hinge on the testimony of a fourth British Muslim
who was traveling with Aswat and saw his companions "lynched, set
on fire and brutally murdered." The man, who along with the other
three, belongs to the 15,000-strong Indian Gujarati Muslim community
in UK, returned to the UK on Thursday, April 18.
The
British case, to be filed by all four British families will not only
charge the VHP, the RSS and the BJP, but also "name specific
names." Qazi confirmed that British data-gathering, which took
the form of a leaked report, has helped human rights organizations on
the ground. London was, apparently, deeply involved in crucial
data-gathering and, according to sources, two or three FCO officials
flew out from London to join the British fact-finding team in India.
This
development comes only a day after newspapers here reported that
India's BJP-led government, which has given clean chit to Modi
administration, is worried that the scathing report on the Gujarat
riots prepared by the British High Commission in Delhi might form the
basis for British courts to indict Chief Minister Narendra Modi for
‘complicity’ in the killing of three British Muslims near
Ahmedabad in early March — and possibly even genocide.
Hindustan Times had leaked on April 15 that the British
High Commission in India has sent a secret report about the riots to
the Foreign Office in London. The report is quoted to have said that
the riots aimed at wiping off Muslim presence and influence in certain
parts of Gujarat.
Disregarding
the official toll of 850, the report said that the real death toll is
around 2000. The most scathing part of the report said that the riots
were pre-planned and the train incident was used only as an excuse.
“If the Sabarmati Express [train] tragedy hadn't happened, another
flashpoint would have been created to justify the premeditated
violence as reaction,” the report was quoted as saying.
British
law allows for jurisdiction when crimes are committed against citizens
overseas. And since a similar provision was explicitly introduced into
Indian statute books via the new Prevention of Terrorism Act, India
would be hard put to invoke national sovereignty if a British court
was to make an extradition request.
The Times of India reported that at least two human rights organizations
and several Indian lawyers in the UK are ‘‘actively
examining’’ the possibility of moving the British courts against
Modi and senior Gujarat officials for their alleged ‘‘role’’
in the killing. The paper quoted a London-based Indian lawyer as
saying that reports of senior Gujarat ministers taking over police
control rooms and preventing officers from saving lives ‘‘will
help establish the chain of command right to the top’’.
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