January  2003 
Year 9    No.83
Peacemakers

Peace Angels

In the two days following the communal flare-up in Malegaon town on October 26, 2001, violence
spread to 130 villages of Nasik district. Muslims, who constitute a minority in all these villages, were at the receiving end of this mob frenzy.

Barely 17 kms from Malegaon lies Neemgaon village where in a population of around 10,000, the 250-strong Muslim community constitutes a tiny minority. Fortunately, despite the violence in surrounding villages, Neemgaon remained incident free, Muslim life and property was safe and the local mosque was untouched.

It is not as if no attempt was made to drag Neemgaon into the vortex of violence and target the local Muslims. If peace reigned in Neemgaon despite the efforts of communal Hindus, it is only because Madhukar Shivram Hiray, a popular local leader who is secular to the core, risked his life to ensure that the Muslims remained safe.

For four trying days, Hiray stood like an iron wall between communal Hindu mobs and the vulnerable Muslims who were in no position to defend themselves. In fact, his compassion drove him to do more. Rampaging mobs had attacked Muslims in the neighbouring villages of Panjarwadi, Nimbaiti, Ghodegaon and others. While their homes were burnt and local mosques destroyed, the Muslims fleeing for their life from these villages were also sheltered by Hiray. For several days, he hosted them as guests on his farm, fed them and looked after their every need.

Recalls Hussain Ali, "When news reached Nimbola village that the powerloom factory owned by a village resident, Seth Nimba Kadam, had been burnt down by Muslim mobs in Malegaon town, enraged Hindus attacked Muslims of neighbouring Nimbaiti village in revenge. The mosque in Nimbaiti was the first to be burnt, following which houses were being torched one after the other. Among the 200 of us who had to flee for safety were two women clutching their new–born babies.

When Hussain Ali, who lived near the mosque, telephoned Madhukar Hiray and appealed for help, he rushed to their rescue.

Hiray recalls: "When I reached Nimbaiti, communal Hindus were gathered around the burning mosque. The moment they saw me, they tried to browbeat me but I chased them away. Meanwhile, all the Muslims had fled from the village and were hiding in the farms. I took them all to the farm of my relative Samadhan Maru and told him to stay alert at night because the mobs might try to attack. The next day Maru sent an urgent message that I should take the Muslims away from his farm as their lives were in danger and he alone would not be able to save them.

"I rushed to Nimbaiti, taking with me a van and a mini truck and brought around 250 Muslims to my farm in Neemgaon. Among them were children a few days old and also some 80–year–olds. These Muslims had lived in peace even during the nationwide communal conflagrations of 1947 and 1992. Apart from the clothes on their bodies, they had nothing left. Even elderly men were clutching me and crying like children. My wife, Nirmalabai Hiray did all she could to console and comfort the womenfolk and looked after them for several days."

When the mosque and homes of the handful of Muslim residents of Ghodegaon village— four kms away from Neemgaon — were targeted by an armed mob of over 2,000 people, they too could think of nothing other than praying to Allah and appealing to Madhukar Hiray.

"I received the call at night when I was in Kolana. I immediately telephoned the OSD (Officer on special duty) Raj Vardhan and alerted him, saying that unless the police rushed to Ghodegaon immediately, a massacre was inevitable. Within 20 minutes of my calling Vardhan, a police contingent had reached Ghodegaon. By the time I reached the village there was no sign of any Muslims. The mosque had already been desecrated. In one of the Muslim homes we found a 90–year–old paralysis patient groaning in pain. Absolutely terrified by the menacing mob, his family members had reluctantly left the old man and fled with the rest of the Muslims."

They spent most of the night out in the cold, hiding in the nearby jungles, trekking till they found security on Hiray’s farm.

In Malgaon, the local mosque and the 22 Muslim homes were destroyed. Hindus from Nimbola village who had also attacked Nimbaiti’s Muslims, had threatened and terrified Malgaon’s Muslims before they finally launched a vicious assault on October 27.

Meanwhile, a group of Hindu youth from Morewadi entered a Muslim home and abducted three young Muslim girls. It was Balu Mahale, a young Hindu himself, who somehow rescued the girls and escorted them to their relatives living in Nandgaon. The hapless father of the girls had gone to Nasik in connection with his business on October 26 and was stranded there because of the riots. While he was away, the police arrested Mahale because an informer falsely implicated him in the abduction. Shocked by this tragic turn of events, poor Mahale died of a heart attack the day he returned home after being released, while the real culprits roamed scot–free.

No doubt, Muslims from these villages suffered a heavy loss of property but if their life and honour was saved, it is thanks entirely to the compassion of Madhukar Hiray, says Salahuddin.

Hiray is deeply saddened by the fact that two Muslims were burnt alive in Sonjh village. "A relative of mine informed me telephonically that some communalists intercepted a bus going from Manmad to Sondana at Sonjh Takli, pulled out the two Muslim passengers, thrashed them mercilessly, then poured kerosene on them and burnt them alive. The rest of the passengers who witnessed the gory incident, refused to identify the culprits before the police. As a result the murderers roamed free."

The deceased, who were residents of Manmad city, were travelling to Sondana to rescue their aunts and other relations, after hearing that violence had erupted in Sondana and the mosque there had been destroyed. To hide evidence, after burning the two alive, the killers had collected their skeletal remains and thrown them on a nearby hill. The police could trace their remains only 15 days later.

(As a result of this, even several months later, the deceased could not be identified and the kith and kin were even deprived of the rupees two lakh in compensation that the government had doled out in other cases of deaths. The police told this reporter that the skeletons had been sent to a Hyderabad–based forensic laboratory to assess the age of the two victims.)

In all, three mosques and over 40 Muslim homes were destroyed or damaged during the attack on Muslims in villages around Neemgaon. Razzaq Panjari of Neemgaon is in no doubt that but for Madhukar Hiray there is no saying how many Muslims may have met a similar fiery death.

Even after the violence had abated, Muslims from Nimbaiti who had been sheltered by Hiray were afraid to return to their villages. Hiray then invited 50 Hindus who were active in Nimbaiti and arranged a meeting on his farm where both Hindus and Muslims pledged to protect each other. It is only after mutual trust had been built that the 250 Muslims of Nimbaiti returned to their village.

When asked to explain the unprecedented phenomenon of communal violence spreading to the villages so rapidly, Hiray said rumours had been deliberately spread to incite people. One particular rumour which really outraged Hindus had it that in Malegaon town Muslims had cut off the breasts of 15 Hindu women and slashed ‘Osama Bin Laden’ across their chests while other Hindu women had been raped. Such rumours were spread through a Shiv Sena mouthpiece and also through word–of–mouth and these played a big role in inciting Hindus, said Hiray.

Because he had risked his life to shield Muslims, his rivals and Hindu communalists carried out extensive propaganda against Hiray, calling him a ‘Talibani’ and ‘Laden ki aulad’ during the Zilla Parishad elections in January 2002. Despite this, he won with a handsome majority.

"For me, this is the victory of truth. My victory with such a big margin is proof that Hindus in my area have not turned against me. Rather, they believe that what I did was a good thing," said Hiray. 

(Translated into English by Javed Anand).