May  2003 
Year 9    No.87

Update


Gujarat: Siege continues

Terror continues to be unleashed systematically against the Muslim minority in Gujarat

BY TEESTA SETALVAD

Terror continues to be unleashed systematically against the Muslim minority in Gujarat, through in
discriminate arrests and illegal detentions by the Ahmedabad police crime branch of at least 80 Muslim youth, the selective application of POTA against 12 persons for alleged involvement in the Haren Pandya murder and 123 accused in the Godhra mass arson. Muslim women, relatives of allegedly absconding accused and even of detained persons, have been subjected to filthy abuse during questioning by the Ahmedabad police.

A delegation of Muslim women petitioned the Ahmedabad police commissioner, Kaushik on April 24 and staged a dharna under the leadership of corporator Nazneen Bastawalla on April 26. The Sunni Bohra community is the special target of these actions. Communalism Combat and SAHMAT, along with senior Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan and academic and human rights activist, Kamal Mitra Chenoy, addressed a press conference in the Capital drawing national attention to the rights’ abuses that continue in Gujarat.

While the investigation into Pandya’s murder has been formally handed over to the CBI, it has effectively been ‘hijacked’ by the crime branch of the Ahmedabad police. Seven petitions filed by relatives of detained persons have expressed the fear that their detained kith and kin may be killed in staged ‘encounters’. Over the past fortnight, police officers like PN Barot and others directly accused of close proximity to the ruling political dispensation who have been brought in are terrorising people in order to extort money from them. Relatives have also filed affidavits to this effect before the Supreme Court that will be appended as a special application in the petition supported by Citizens for Justice and Peace that comes up in the SC in late June. (See CC, April 03).

Government sources reveal that a sinister plan to target over 325 Muslim–run institutions, including madrassas and others, has been put in place with the help of the education department, the charity commissioner’s office and the city and state police. A survey of madrassas has already been made, supervised by the state’s home minister. Meanwhile, Christian institutions have also been picked for objectionable questioning by the state’s education department.

Human rights defenders, associates of Communalism Combat and Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) in Gujarat, social workers, and some lawyers from the minority community fighting cases for justice, all of whom have been receiving threats are seriously concerned for their lives. Activists and workers coordinating the Gulberg massacre, the Naroda Gaon and Pattiya carnage especially are receiving regular threats.

On May 4, on a public interest petition filed by CJP, praying for adequate compensation for house compensation and also for a complete account of the Rs 150 crore in central aid given to violence affected in Gujarat was heard by the Gujarat high court. CJP and CC were authorised by the court to correspond with the government on the issue after which the court would issue appropriate orders. The matter now comes up in late June.

Meanwhile, in the struggle for justice, the progress remains slow. While the Gulberg trial is yet to take off full-steam, an identification of the accused by key eyewitnesses took place last month. In the trial related to the massacre at Sardarpura in Mehsana district, where 33 persons were hacked to death and burnt alive, a petition challenging the gross anomalies in the local prosecution trial (including the immediate release of the 55 accused on bail and the questionable role of the public prosecutor) was heard by the Gujarat high court on May 8. The high court noted that the prayer of the petitioners who are survivors that the government acts on section 24(8) of the CrPC regarding the appointment of a special public prosecutor should be taken seriously. Maulana Umerji’s application challenging his police remand under POTA was, however, upheld by the Gujarat high court and the appeal is likely to go to the Supreme Court. 


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