Gujarat: Riot, rehabilitation: Govt wakes up to NHRC call

(Ahmedabad Newsline
June 18, 2007)


PEOPLE LIVING IN COLONIES FOR RIOT-HIT GET RATION CARD, VOTER IDS; ALSO GET POWER & WATER CONNECTION
Riot, rehabilitation: Govt wakes up to NHRC call
Express News Service

Vadodara, June 17: DEDKI Mehmood Yusuf, a victim of the 2002 post-Godhra carnage living in a rehabilitation colony near Ranipura in the Panchmahals, finally got his ration and voter ID card on Friday after three long years, thanks to a directive from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

Stirred by a recent communiqué from the NHRC, the State government seems to have suddenly woken up to the needs of the 5,000-odd families living in 69 rehabilitation colonies in Gujarat. From electricity to voter ID cards, below poverty line (BPL) cards to job cards, the residents from these colonies are finally in the government’s eye. All these due to the efforts of the Aantarik Visthapit Hak Rakshak Samiti (AVHRS), which has been organising rallies involving all the families of the relief colonie. AVHRS acted as a liaison between the victims and the NHRC.

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On Sunday, the AVHRS held a public meeting of representatives from all over the State to discuss the progress and their next action plan.

It was on February 1 this year that the AVHRS held their first community meeting in Ahmedabad. AVHRS convener Yusuf Sheikh said, “The people in these colonies had been suffering from neglect for too long, so we congregated in Ahmedabad and prepared a charter of demands to be sent to the NHRC.”

Since then, the AVHRS has formed committees in each of the 69 colonies, which meet frequently to discuss their problems and forward their requests to the State government. Also, each committee has to have a woman on it without which the AVHRS refuses to recognise them.

Muzaffar Ali, living in the Ranipur colony, now proudly displays his job card and voter ID card. “We had no identity in the State after the carnage. Now we can apply for work and even vote in the upcoming elections,” said a delighted Ali. Similarly, Sulaiman Diwan’s colony, set up in 2003 in Palej in Bharuch, got their long-awaited electricity and water connection only last week after a long battle against Government officials.

Even after the success of the AVHRC, Yusuf Sheikh’s work is far from complete. “Now that things are moving along, we have to make sure all the families are looked after equally,” he says, adding that on October 2, they would be organising another as part of the International Non-Violence Day.

“We welcome the UN decision for marking the Non-Violence Day and we aim to celebrate it with a massive rally involving all the colonies in the State to promote a sense of brotherhood between Hindus and Muslims,” Sheikh said.