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Human Rights Body Slams India Over Gujarat Violence
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"There are 100,000 people, most of which are Muslims, in relief camps across the state, it was difficult to tally an exact death toll as bodies were still being recovered"
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NEW DELHI, April 26 (IslamOnline & AFP) - An international human rights group Friday slammed the government in the western Indian state of Gujarat for its handling of sectarian riots and said the police had "completely failed" to protect the Muslim victims of the violence.
Refuting the official death toll of 900 since the violence broke out in February, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), said the number of dead was closer to 2,000 with about 100,000 displaced. Also, a number of western diplomats and international human rights groups stated the death toll is in fact much higher, putting it at between 2,000 to 3,000 people.
"The vast majority of the victims are Muslims," the Paris-based FIDH said.
"There are 100,000 people in relief camps across the state, it was difficult to tally an exact death toll as bodies were still being recovered", a police spokesman said. He said most of the displaced were too scared to return home for fear of further violence.
"The selective targeting of Muslim houses and shops, the storage and availability of weapons ... the pattern of specific police combing of Muslim areas ... are some of the elements pointing towards an organized elaboration of the crimes," the FIDH said.
"... the responsibility of the Gujarat government is inescapable. The complete failure of the Gujarat police to provide adequate protection to victims of brutality, most of which are Muslims, is the most glaring illustration of this responsibility," the human rights group said.
Opposition parties have been demanding the resignation of Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his inability to prevent the violence.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Thursday lashed out against the growing international criticism of the sectarian riots. "India is being advised on pluralism and secularism. We need not learn about secularism from anybody," Vajpayee said. Gujarat's government, which is ruled by Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist BJP party, has been under fire for its handling of the riots, with opposition parties accusing it of turning a blind eye to attacks on Muslims.
Some 31 people have been killed in the riot-torn western Indian state of Gujarat since Sunday when fresh unrest broke out in the worst clashes there since the army was deployed to keep order in early March.
The Hindu-Muslim riots, the worst in Indian in more than a decade, erupted when a Muslim mob torched a train carrying Hindu activists, killing 58 people in Godhra town on February 27. The incident sparked a furious cycle of violence in which most victims have been Muslims. Some 100,000 people remain displaced after losing their shops or homes.
A number of police officers had said they were subject to political pressure not to arrest "the offenders of the post-Godhra violence," the statement said.
The FIDH investigating on whether officials of Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist party and its religious affiliates who were suspected of having taken an active part in the violence, were "being shielded from prosecution through political intervention."
"The commission's terms of reference appear to have been deliberately limited in order to avoid wide-ranging inquiry into the real instigators of ... the possible planning of the attacks against the minority community." the FIDH said.
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