A Black Day in The Lives of Gujarat Pogrom Survivors
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VHP activist, icon of the criminals in Gujarat.
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By
IOL South Asia Correspondent
NEW
DELHI, July 26 (IslamOnline)- Saturday, July 27, 2002 be as a dark day
in the life of several thousand survivors of Gujarat pogrom living in
relief camps.
In
hundreds of cases of arson, rape and murder, the last date for
initiating legal procedures to seek justice was July 27, after which
no legal proceedings can be launched.
India’s
penal law stipulates that if the accused are not produced in court
within 90 days of the police recording the report of an offence, the
case would stand time-barred.
Some
of the worst massacres happened in Naroda Patia and Shanti Town (Peace
Town) of Ahmedabad city 89 days ago, in which 142 Muslims were burnt
alive. More people died in attacks within the next few hours.
The
survivors lodged hundreds of reports with the police, identifying
attackers, most of whom were leaders of Rashtiya Sevayam Sevak Sangh
(RSS) frontal organizations. RSS is a conglomerate of numerous Hindu
nationalist organizations, its political front being Bharatiya Janta
Party (BJP), which has been ruling the western state of Gujarat and
leading the ruling coalition at Center as well.
The
cases in question are going to get time-barred because the state
police refused to investigate them and produce the accused before the
courts.
The
Nazi-like stance of the state has caused concern worldwide. Matters
have not been helped by the Center’s refusal of visa to Amnesty
International researchers who wanted to investigate the state’s role
in bringing the culprits to book and providing relief and
rehabilitation to victims.
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Name plate of former Member of Parliament Ahsan Jaferi who was burnt alive and his home torched on the first day of the pogroms. |
For
the last five days, India’s parliament has been witnessing stormy
scenes over the state and Central governments’ failure to get
justice to the victims.
A
combined opposition has been grilling the Central government to
explain what relief and rehabilitation measures had been taken in
Gujarat and what had been done to get justice for the victims. The
plane answer is nothing much, but the government has been evading a
straight reply.
On
the contrary, India’s Deputy Minister Lal Krishna Advani, a hardline
Hindu nationalist, has been trying to defend the indefensible. Advani
had the cheek to tell Parliament on Tuesday, July 23, that Gujarat
Chief Minister Modi (widely held to be the architect of the
anti-Muslim pogrom) was the best chief minister of any Indian state in
the last 50 years!
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These criminals will now lawfully go unpunished. |
Confronted
by opposition leaders, he retracted the next day, saying that he had
never said Modi was the best chief minister in 50 years, but only that
Modi had “controlled” the riots better than anyone else. This
further inflamed the opposition, which has decided to go on grilling
the government on Gujarat for the next few days.
The
denial of visas to Amnesty has lent credence to the general impression
(confirmed by a dozen independent enquiries) that the BJP government
in Gujarat and BJP-led government at Center are trying to hide state
complicity in the massacres.
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