(HindustanTimes.com » States » Gujarat)
Victims need homes, not camps
Rathin Das
Ahmedabad, February 25, 2007
Five years after the carnage that killed more than 2,000 Muslims in retaliation to the death of more than 58 kar sewaks in the Godhra train blaze, thousands of survivors continue to live in sub-human conditions in makeshift camps set up by the relief committees.
They are scared to go home because their tormentors, who are still at large, threaten them. Community leaders feel that the worst thing in five years of the Gujarat riots is that there is absolutely no sense of remorse among the people who had planned and executed the anti-minority mayhem. “There is no sense of remorse because it was a well-planned carnage to derive political gains,” Dr Shakeel Ahmed of the Islamic Relief Committee (IRC), said.
Rais Khan Pathan of the Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), which had highlighted the acquittals in the Best Bakery massacre case, said the divide between the two communities has deepened further. He said the psychological distance between the communities was increasing as interaction among them at various levels was decreasing.
“The administration has not made any effort to bring the two communities together in five years,” said Pathan. But the ruling BJP turned the spotlight on investment to divert attention from the growing Hindu-Muslim divide. State BJP president Purshottam Rupala said Gujarat had been peaceful for the past five years even though there was communal trouble elsewhere. “Investment to the tune of thousands of crores kept pouring in as the real proof of peace in Gujarat,” Rupala told newsmen this week.
Amid the contradictory claims, the only flicker of hope for the minority community now is the Supreme Court verdict, upholding the POTA review committee recommendation that the accused held under POTA for the train fire would be entitled to apply for bail.
Welcoming the verdict, Saeed Hussain Umarji told Hindustan Times that they should get bail as the police had no evidence against them barring their confessional statements extracted in custody. Saeed is the son of Maulana Hussain Umarji, picked up by the police in 2003 and named as the prime conspirator in the train burning incident of February 27.
Email Rathin Das: rathindas_2000@yahoo.com
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