Cover Story |
Carnage in Coimbatore
A 12-member team sent by the PUCL to Kovai (formerly Coimbatore) to investigate into the communal disturbances two months ago, found shocking instances of anti-Muslim collusion between sections of the local police and Hindu communal bodies For three nightmarish days and nights two months ago, a communal carnage was unleashed in Coimbatore (now renamed Kovai) in Tamil Nadu. The killing of a traffic constable by three Muslim youth proved to be sufficient provocation for the targeting of the entire Muslim community where policemen and frenzied mobs owing allegiance to the Hindu Munnani, RSS and BJP worked in such close tandem that their identities were indistinguishable. Official figures of casualties — 27 Muslim youth shot dead by the police and another 100 seriously wounded — and the police-instigated large-scale looting of Muslim shops and homes, reveal only part of the story. The most ominous was the turning of the government hospital in the city into a communal war theatre. First, the ruling party MLA, C.T. Dhandapani, visiting the wounded constable in the hospital was thrashed by policemen in civilian clothes. They were aided by members of Hindu communal organisations while uniformed policemen on duty silently watched. Thereafter, injured Muslims brought for treatment were
set upon. They were attacked with bayonets, wooden rods and boots. Some
were killed. Even rickshawallahs transporting the injured
to hospital were not spared.
Tempers ran high on the evening of November 29 (1997) when two Muslim youth, stopped by the traffic police for a driving license, failed to produce it. When asked to identity themselves, they said that they belonged to the Al-Umma group. That was, allegedly, enough reason for the sub-inspector who had detained the youngsters to start hurling foul abuses at Muslims in general. The secretary of Al-Umma, Thiru. Ansari took up this matter with the police station concerned. He is said to have faced more abuses. A sub-inspector on duty allegedly opined that “all Muslims should be packed off to Pakistan”. Ansari was claimed to have been beaten with a lathi till inspector Muthuswamy intervened. News of this incident spread tension in the Muslim majority Kottaimedu area of the city, with the youth especially getting angry and resentful. A meeting held at the Al-Umma office continued till 11 p.m. Meanwhile, three Muslim youth took it upon themselves to kill a traffic constable, Selvaraj. When the police arrived to comb the area for the murderers of Selvaraj, local Muslim leaders assured the police that they will identity the culprits and hand them over by the next morning. Despite this assurance, while returning from the area, policemen allegedly set fire to some roadside stalls that night. Talking to the PUCL’s 12-member investigation team that visited the city in the last week of December, Kotai Saravanam, district secretary of the Hindu Makkal Katchi, said it was Hindus who burnt down the shops. Members of the Arunthathiar caste (Dalits) living across the area confirmed the fact that shops were set on fire that night. According to an eye-witness, the Al-Umma identified the three alleged killers of the constable and handed them to the police by 9 a.m. the next day — November 30. However, determined not to let the matter end there, a group of around 100 policemen sat on a dharna in which senior leaders of the Hindu Makkal Katchi, Hindu Munnani, BJP and RSS cadres also participated. With tension mounting and rumours rife, the first attack was led by a mob of Hindus on Muslims, with bottles and stones. Muslims retaliated. Several Arunthathiars told members of the investigation team that Inspector Murali had instigated them to loot and take whatever they wanted from Muslim homes. Poverty stricken Arunthathiar women and children entered Muslim homes and carried away whatever they could lay their hands on. A rice godown was broken open. For many Arunthathiars this was a Manna from heaven. It was also a cynical manipulation of poverty stricken and oppressed people by their own oppressors, the upper castes and the OBCs. Meanwhile, on the other side of Kottaimedu, a vicious attack on middle class and poor Muslim families was led by men clad in black and saffron, shouting, “Jai Kali, Om Kali”. The terror-stricken state of ordinary Muslims was evident to the visiting PUCL team 25 days after the event. Several families simply handed over their keys to the assaulters and stood as mute spectators to the loot of their property, merely to save their women and children’s lives. Some looters allegedly taunted the Muslim women that they
were left unscathed and unmolested merely because the assailants at that
time were observing the Iyappa swami ritual. In the course of the assault,
among other things, a Masjid in the locality was desecrated, copies of
the Quran burnt, a school building broken down.
The killing spree began on the afternoon of November 30 with the arrival of deputy police commissioner, Masanamuthu, on the scene at about 12.30 p.m. Another police officer, Babu Rajendra Prasad, leading a team of 20 policemen, was also sighted shooting without orders. A junior police officer confirmed this to the members of the PUCL team on condition of anonymity. In another case, one police officer was seen physically obstructing his colleague about to shoot yet another innocent Muslim. Yet another officer was seen pleading that such behaviour was unbecoming of a police officer. Muslim boys who came running to the rescue of their relatives or friends whose shops were being ransacked or burnt were shot at without reason. A 13-year-old youth, Abu Backer Siddique, died on the spot in the course of this unprovoked firing. But the most ghastly scenes were enacted at the government hospital where the policemen arrived in a procession along with members of communal Hindu groups after their dharna. They mercilessly assaulted, torched and stabbed to death, both the injured Muslims brought to the hospital for treatment and their rescuers. Doctors who tried to intervene were themselves threatened. Habib Rehman( 26), who had escorted Mohammed Harris – wounded in the police firing – to the hospital was torched to death. The injured Harris, too, was murdered in cold blood. D r. Chidambaram Jothi, a nurse who did not wish to be identified and the caretaker of the mortuary (all three Hindus) showed exceptional courage and, at great risk to themselves, saved innocent lives. Accounts of their praiseworthy conduct were recounted to the investigation team by grateful Muslims. The PUCL team met one Mustafa Aliyar, who was brutally attacked and shot by police on the evening of December 1, 1997 when he accompanied Upaider Rehman to visit the latter’s sister. On being stopped by policemen and identified as Muslims, the two were brutally beaten by the police officers and told: “You are Muslim dogs and should be beaten to death”. As Mustafa tried to escape, he heard gunshots and turned
around to find Upaidur gasping for life. At this point the police fired
at him too and one of the bullets pierced through his left hand and shoulder.
Irfan Engineer and Sandhya Mhatre (The PUCL sent a 12-member investigation team to probe the violence at Kovai. Irfan Engineer, Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism and Sandhya Mhatre were part of the team. While the PUCL’s investigation report is in the process of finalisation, this report is based on the findings of the team). |
The widening divide THE Hindu Munnani was formed in Tamil Nadu around 1982 to tackle “the threat of conversions” in the wake of the mass conversions of Dalits to Islam in Meenakshipuram in the early ’80s. The Hindu Munnani leader Thiru Ramagopalan has visited Kovai several times and delivered highly provocative speeches insulting both Muslims and Islam. In the deteriorating communal climate since then, some Muslim organisations, too, took birth. A section of Muslims have got organised under various organisations like Al-Umma and the TMMK for the protection of their economic and human rights. Another organisation, JAQH, has been working for reform within the Muslim community in Kovai. Al-Umma, is ostensibly an organisation formed to reassert Islamic identity and abjure un-Islamic practices. But, in fact, it has cultivated its own muscle power, not merely to counter the aggressions of the Hindu Munnani, but also for use within the community to “solve” family and intra-community disputes. On the demolition of the Babri Masjid,
there were minor protests in the Kottaimedu area of Kovai where, of the
40,000 residents, 80 per cent are Muslim. To contain the protest, the police
opened fire on December 8, 1992 on Muslims assembled in a local Masjid
and resorted to lathi charge. Fortunately, there were no injuries or deaths.
Under the Jayalalitha regime following the bomb blast, the police, using the pretext of probing for “ISI connection”, combed Muslim areas and homes without any basic regard for civil liberties and harassed Muslim families. To make matters worse, the police put up three check posts at important entry points into Kottaimedu and four pickets inside the locality, thus isolating this minority-dominated part from the rest of Kovai. This further aggravated the youth who thought they were being treated as criminals. The PUCL, investigating earlier tensions in Kovai had, in its report dated February 28, 1994, specifically named some police officers, including Thiru. Ganesan, then commissioner of police and Thiru. Masanamuthu, then assistant commissioner of police, as responsible for the brutal and unlawful attack on the Muslims. No action was taken then, or appears likely now against guilty police officers or civilians participating in the systematic murder and arson. Masanamuthu is claimed to openly remark while speaking to Muslims that turukans (Muslims) should be shot like sparrows and would often remind them that he was from the Thevar caste. Muslims form less than one per cent of the police force in Kovai. There are about 1,200 roadside stalls in and around Ukkadam, Big Bazaar and Kottaimedu, mostly owned by Muslims. The police has been collecting as mamool (bribe) between Rs.25 to Rs.50 per day per shop. After the last elections, these traders organised themselves into various organisations like TMMK and AITUC which effectively curbed the mamool collections by the police. This loss of illegal revenue is also in the background Muslim-police conflict. The TMMK gave a call to Muslims all over Tamil Nadu to observe December 6 — Babri-Masjid demolition day – as a Black Day and to participate in the protest procession. A poster war that heightened tensions followed in the weeks preceding the violence, with the Hindu Munnani putting up posters heralding December 6 as Victory Day. Other anonymous provocative posters also contributed their bit to fuel passions. —I.E. & S.M.
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