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in Ahmedabad
 GULBERG SOCIETY IN Ahmedabad today. Sixty-nine people died in the arson and massacre at the Society in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom SAIRABEN SANDHI and Rupa Mody sit quietly on the back benches at the Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Ahmedabad watching the proceedings in the Zakia Jafri case. Both the women have witnessed immense tragedy. One saw her son killed, while the other has been searching for her missing son for the past 10 years. In the courtroom, there are others too who survived the gruesome massacre at Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad in 2002. All of them have gone through the trauma of seeing immediate family members hacked or burnt to death. The judge eventually postpones the hearing to another day and the survivors file out. They seem used to this routine. There is a level of tension and disappointment among them, but they are not entirely disheartened. “We come for every hearing in this case. Until we are alive we are not going to give up. We are not going to leave him [Chief Minister Narendra Modi]. We know we will get justice even if it takes another 10 years,” says Rupa Mody. The Zakia Jafri case has begun to symbolise the struggle for justice for all the riot victims and is reaching a crucial stage. It is the only case in which Modi is named as an accused and is, therefore, seen as critical in nailing the perpetrators of the pogrom. Coincidently, as the tenth anniversary of the Gujarat riots approaches, the case has taken a significant turn. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has filed a “closure report” saying there is not enough evidence to prosecute Modi. Zakia Jafri's legal team has gone in appeal. Its main contention is that the riots were meticulously planned and those in seats of power deliberately turned a blind eye to the attacks on Muslims across the State. In the past few years, Modi has tried hard to get rid of the taint of the riots and get what he calls a “clean chit”. However, each time the “clean chit” has been within grasp, the law has intervened to thwart him. With Assembly elections in Gujarat scheduled for later this year and national politics beckoning him as an aspirant for the prime ministership, Modi appears desperate to get the riots-responsible label off his back. Furthermore, he has worked the corporate sector to project himself as a forward-thinking leader who is interested in bringing prosperity and development to his State – and not as a saffron politician interested only in communal politics. Getting the Tatas to shift their Nano small car plant to Sanand from Singur in West Bengal was clearly a part of this agenda, say observers. February 28, 2012, will mark a decade since the Gujarat riots, undoubtedly one of the worst chapters of communal violence in the country's history. Official estimates put the death toll, of both Hindus and Muslims, at a little over 1,000, while unofficially it has been pegged at more than 2,000. At least 600 children were orphaned and more than 400 were reported missing. Ten years later, the wounds are still to heal. The investigation into the riot cases are plodding along with no closure in sight. The only case to reach a conclusion is Sardarpura, where a mob burnt alive 33 Muslims trapped in a house. Thirty-one people were imprisoned for life in this case. There are eight other cases that are pending trial. For many victims the memories of the violence are still fresh in their minds. “Only justice will help heal. But nothing they do can bring back my son,” says Rupa Mody. If the nightmares of the 2002 violence were not bad enough, the minority communities have had to cope with severe marginalisation. Thousands of families have been hounded out of the State, and they have moved with just the clothes on their back to areas such as Mumbra in Maharashtra. On issues relating to the minority community, the dominant view is that over the past decade Gujarat has become more polarised than ever before. Access to education, employment, housing and other fundamental needs is becoming increasingly difficult. What is worse is that there are few rays of optimism – there is only a sense of helplessness. Zakia Jafri, a big hope Zakia Jafri saw her husband, Ehsan Jafri, a former Member of Parliament, being hacked to death. Ehsan Jafri thought that his house in Gulberg Society offered the best protection to other residents of the locality from the rampaging mobs. Unfortunately, in spite of several phone calls to the police and senior politicians, help never arrived and Jafri had to handle the mob single-handedly. Eventually, he stepped out of his house in an attempt to placate the mob. They killed him and then burnt his body in front of his family and neighbours.  Of the 30 homes and approximately 20 families, only one family continues to inhabit what is now virtually a ghost colony. Zakia Jafri remembers vividly every moment of those two horrific days. As many as 69 people died in Gulberg Society and 28 went missing, one of them was Azhar, Rupa Mody's 13-year-old son. To date they remain missing. Zakia Jafri, along with several activists and members of the Citizens of Justice and Peace (CJP), a non-governmental organisation, has maintained that the Gujarat riots were a pogrom and that there is enough evidence to prove this. Leading a protracted legal fight for justice for the past eight years, the feisty 70-year-old says she will not back down until the perpetrators and killers of her husband and thousands of other Muslims are punished. “Now, at this stage, we won't let them close the case so easily. We will keep it going for however long it takes to get justice,” says Zakia Jafri, who lives with her son in Surat. “You cannot say that in 10 years nothing has happened. Modi's name is linked to terrible communal riots. His name is badnaamed (sullied) all over the world. Everyone knows his true colours since this case has got so much attention. The fact that he has blood on his hands… he cannot wipe that off so easily,” she said to Frontline. Zakia Jafri's case reached a critical juncture in February, when the SIT decided to file a “closure report” citing lack of prosecutable evidence against Modi. Zakia Jafri's legal recourse is to appeal for the report. On February 15, she was told the report would be given within a month. This could mean the end of her case but she does have the provision to appeal in the higher courts and eventually in the Supreme Court. In 2006, Zakia Jafri petitioned the court alleging that Modi and 61 others, including politicians, policemen and bureaucrats, had colluded to ensure that the victims of the mob attacks during the riots did not receive help. Zakia Jafri, along with other witnesses, testified in court that Ehsan Jafri repeatedly called Modi when they were under attack. But no help came. She accused Modi of abdicating his duty as the constitutionally elected head of the State government to protect the right to life of all its citizens regardless of their caste, community and gender and becoming the architect of a criminal conspiracy. In 2007, the Gujarat High Court rejected her petition for a first information report (FIR) to be filed. Zakia Jafri and the CJP then filed a special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court, which appointed Prashant Bhushan amicus curiae. In 2009, the court appointed a Special Investigation Team led by R.K. Raghavan, former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to probe the Zakia Jafri case. In 2010, Zakia Jafri and thousands of others saw some manner of justice when the SIT summoned Modi for questioning. This was the first time in the country's history that a Chief Minister was questioned in a criminal complaint that dealt with communal violence. But two years later the SIT in its report cited lack of substantial evidence to prosecute him. In an interview to Frontline, at that time she said: “Yes. It has been a long time. But when I heard Modi had been summoned, I said, ‘ Insaf ho jayega' [Justice will happen]. Someone like Modi cannot be accused of such a major crime without adequate evidence. We have persevered at collecting every relevant detail to implicate him. One day it will pay off. If he admits his guilt, that itself would be a punishment for someone like him.”  In what seemed like a victory for both parties, in September 2011 the Supreme Court sent the Zakia Jafri case back to the trial court in Ahmedabad as it chose not to pass judgment on whether Modi should be prosecuted or not. Modi celebrated the order, saying this essentially let him off the hook. Zakia Jafri and Teesta Setalvad, activist and lawyer with the CJP, too, welcomed the order and saw it as a move in the right direction. “This is part of the judicial process and we welcome and respect the Supreme Court's directive. It has not, by any length, given Modi a clean chit. They are just following the correct procedures,” said Teesta Setalvad. “Of course, we couldn't expect the Supreme Court to make a major decision, but this is as good. The reason why it is a victory for us and not for Modi or the BJP is that it has gone past the FIR stage,” she said.  This February the SIT, however, took what is now being seen as a predictable step and filed a “closure report”. Activists and those involved in the case exploded at the move. Sanjiv Bhatt, a suspended police officer who was named as a witness by Zakia Jafri and who testified against Modi, said: “In spite of substantial direct evidence and overwhelming circumstantial evidence to establish Modi's complicity in the anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002, the SIT says they do not have enough to prosecute him.” He added: “The SIT has deliberately suppressed and concealed data which would implicate Modi.” In 2010, Raju Ramachandran was appointed amicus curiae as Prashant Bhushan stepped down. Informed sources say Ramachandran's report is damning and flies in the face of the SIT's “closure report”. The next few weeks will determine where this case goes, says Teesta Setalvad. “But we will pursue it relentlessly. The Zakia Jafri case has become a symbol of justice and we have to keep it going.” Gulberg Society – A mother's story Rupa (Tanaz) Mody, her husband Dara Mody, and two children were the only non-Muslims living in Gulberg Society. Her son Azhar has been missing since February 28, 2002. Until she sees his body, she says she will not be convinced he is dead. He is among the 28 persons missing from this colony, which was ravaged by a mob that set it on fire by throwing chemical-filled vials that burst into flames once they hit a surface. Eyes brimming with tears, she says she has searched for Azhar for 10 years and will continue searching for him. The family has gone through every morgue in the city, every police station, and put up posters too. A film, Parzania, has been made on her son. They have done whatever it takes to locate a missing person, but there is absolutely no sign of the boy. Distraught and angry, she says: “I will fight until my dying day to see that Modi and his band of rogues are nailed. I was in Jafri Saheb's house and saw how our cries for help were ignored by Modi and the police. I want them to pay.” On the eve of the Zakia Jafri closure report case, Rupa Mody spoke to Frontline about what happened at Gulberg Society 10 years ago. Her story is only one of many horrific incidents that took place during the pogrom. She summoned the courage to speak out where others could not: “My children were at tuition when we heard of the train burning in Godhra. The TV was on in my house but I didn't pay much attention to it at that time. My husband, who is a film projectionist, called from his office to say there were reports of violence and we should be careful. I got the children home. Then we began to see our neighbours come out looking concerned. Ours was a small enclosed colony of houses and from my flat I could see people gathering on nearby terraces. That is when I saw one man holding a gupti [axe] pointing towards us – then I became concerned.  CHIEF MINISTER NARENDRA MODI speaking at a BJP rally near Ahmedabad on September 25, 2011. “We started gathering in Jafri Saheb's house. He was an MP and we were sure he would organise help. Suddenly there were hundreds of men scaling the walls and entering the Society. They had hundreds of little vials of chemicals – resembling nail polish bottles, which they threw into our house. As soon as they hit a surface they would explode in flames. The mob had cleverly cut the water supply from the overhead tanks ,so we had no way of putting out the fires. They began gheraoing Jafri Saheb's house and demanding that he come out. We were 30-40 of us hiding, and we tried to hide the gas cylinders so that the chemicals would not hit them. They were using the cylinders to blast walls. Meanwhile, outside, our neighbours were being butchered by the mob. We could hear women shrieking – later I was told many were raped. “By the evening almost every room was on fire. There was a ladder leading to the terrace at the back of the house. We started climbing towards that escape. By then many people had fallen unconscious because of the smoke. I could hear Jafri Saheb say, ‘Let me die if it saves you.' That was the last line we heard from him. He was killed by the mob. At this point I had both my children with me. In the commotion, I fell. “As I fell I could hear my daughter shout: mummy get up, mummy get up. My daughter had been holding my son Azhar's hand right through the time we were hiding in Jafri Saheb's house. She had to let go of it to save me. When I managed to get up I only saw my daughter Binaifer not Azhar. We kept shouting Azhu! Azhu!, but could not find him. We finally made it up to the terrace, but even there we couldn't find Azhar. I tried going back down but everyone told me the mob would kill me. Still Zakiaben said, ‘Let her go – she is a mother.' Finally, when help came, we were told a boy matching Azhar's description was at the Saibagh police station. I rushed into the police station shouting ‘Azhu! Azhu!' but it wasn't him. I haven't stopped searching since then. “We went back to Gulberg Society almost two weeks later. The entire colony had been burnt down. Ironically, my house was untouched. Perhaps because I had a picture of Mata on the wall they thought it was a Hindu house. Sometimes I wonder if I hadn't left my house we would have been safe and I would still have Azhar.” Rupa Mody says Zakia Jafri's case is very critical to all the riot cases. This case names Modi as the prime accused. She says everyone in Gujarat will agree that Modi controls everything, and this violence could not have taken place without his consent and knowledge. “What do you tell a mother who cannot find her child?” says Father Cedric Prakash, who heads Prashant, a human rights organisation in Ahmedabad. “Modi won't allow Parzania to be screened in Ahmedabad. Why? What is he afraid of?” A ghost colony Located in Meghaninagar, a suburb of Ahmedabad, Gulberg Society is a tiny colony of half a dozen houses and 18 apartments. To understand how cruel and violent the riots were, one has to walk through the Society compound today. The houses are burnt shells. Walls are broken and covered with soot from the fires started by the mob. There are no windows on any of the houses, and the ones that remain are either shattered or have fallen. The floors are covered with mud and ash. Here and there are burnt remnants of household materials – a painting, some slippers. It is an eerie feeling when one wonders how many dead bodies would have been found on these floors. Zakia Jafri-Citizens for Justice and Peace case - a chronology (PDF) Gulberg's compound is filled with weeds, overgrown foliage, garbage and stagnant water. Stray dogs have made it their home, and one can see a few passers-by stopping to ease themselves on the walls of what was once someone's home. A watchman from the nearby bakery is allowed to use one of the rooms of a bombed-out home, to sleep during the day. When awake he keeps an eye on the property. The property cannot be sold or developed as it is under litigation, testimony to a terrible crime and a numbing reminder to those who survived. Of the 30 homes and approximately 20 families, only one family continues to inhabit what is now virtually a ghost colony. Kasimbhai Alanoor Mansoori lost 12 family members, including his wife, daughter and a son. Occupying the first house, he says he does not live here anymore but uses the premises for business. “We built these houses with so much difficulty. The houses must be worth a least Rs.50 lakh. But that doesn't matter. We have lost so much more,” says Mansoori. “The Gulberg Society case is very important because of Modi's involvement. We have to keep fighting,” he says. Every year on February 28, members of Gulberg Society gather in the compound and pay homage to those who were killed. This year will be no different. It can only be hoped that the Zakia Jafri case moves in the right direction. Anything other than that would be unfair to those who have lost so much.
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Saturday, February 25, 2012
Gujrat
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Kashmir: Shopian gang rape and double murder case
JAMMU & KASHMIR
A flawed inquiry
A.G. NOORANI
The inquiry commission’s report on the Shopian incident is a monumental fraud on the people of Kashmir.
Hands raised in prayer in a march in protest against the Shopian murders, in Srinagar on June 24. Thousands took part in the march.
That is the law. The reality in this case is altogether different. Let Justice Muzaffar Jan (retired) speak for himself: “Special thanks are due to Dr. Haseeb Mughal, S.P. [Superintendent of Police], who assisted the Commission with professional competence, sincerity of purpose, dedication and tireless energy. Dr. Mughal not only assisted the Commission during investigation but also helped in compilation of the report at all stages” (Final Report; page 101).
Have you ever heard of a police officer/assisting a judge in the “compilation” of his report? This is as unprecedented as Omar Abdullah’s famous conditional resignation on July 28. Muzaffar Jan himself emphasises that the assistance by the Superintendent of Police continued even after the investigations were over. He “helped in compilation of the report at all stages”. This alone suffices to render the report utterly worthless. Mughal is an employee of the State government headed by Omar Abdullah. His intervention robbed the Commission of Inquiry of independence and integrity. The Chief Minister could not have been unaware of that.
Immediately on his appointment to the Commission of Inquiry, Muzaffar Jan exclaimed to a TV channel that he hoped he would fulfil the expectation of the government. He has in full measure. More royalist than the king, he denounces the Hurriyat and other protesters as “anti-national”. Summing up the evidence of Javed Iqbal Mattoo, the S.P. of Shopian, he records his admission that if an FIR had been filed on May 30, covering both rape and murder, “the culprits would have been apprehended” after the investigation and “there would have been no loss of life or hartals and the dissenting anti-national elements would not have made political gain” (Interim Report, Part I, page 13). The italicised words do not belong to the S.P. They are Justice Muzaffar Jan’s comment. The Commission was set up to silence the critics and turn the tables on political opponents.
The Interim Report was published on June 21 and the Final Report on July 10. Understandably, the Commission of Inquiry could not name the perpetrators. The evidence had vanished. The Interim Report finds: “In the instant case, the entire investigating agency including the S.I. [Sub-Inspector] Gazi Abdul Kareem, SHO [Station House Officer] Shafeeq Ahmed, Rohit Baskotra, Dy. S.P., and S.P. Javed Iqbal Mattoo have taken all steps to refuse to investigate the complaint of a gruesome rape and death of two girls in which the interest of the entire society was involved, and required/ sympathetic approach and serious application of mind. The same has not been done by all the four officers…. All the police officers in-charge, district Shopian, appear to be amicably [sic] ignorant of their professional responsibility, and their duty to uphold the honour of their uniform.”
The Final Report records a clear finding of rape and murder: “The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the death of both Neelofar and Aasiya has not been because of any natural cause, but the death of both the girls has been caused with the aim to destroy evidence after rape, by committing their murder.” Despite the evidence, he struggles to hold that it was not a gang rape.
He proceeds to hold: “Weighing the pros and cons of the consistent connivance, in the initial stage of investigation, by the investigating agency, and the subsequent cover-up and manoeuvring by the local police, showing no seriousness in the incident, leads to the irresistible inference that the police had more to hide than to reveal. The only aspect that has to be considered is, why should the police try to cover up facts from the public gaze, was it because of incompetence, or indifference or out of fear of public exposure….
“All the officers of the department stood by the theory of death by drowning with full knowledge and belief that no one in the recent or past history of Shopian has died due to drowning in River Rambi Ara. The official statement of drowning does not convey the mindset of indifference, but depicts an active, intelligent and conscious effort to divert the attention of public from the actual and factual cause of death.”
Referring to the deposit of the corpses on the riverbed between 2-30 a.m. and 5-30 a.m. on May 30, the Final Report says: “It does not appeal to reason that an individual civilian would, on his own, take a grave risk of detection, by carrying the dead bodies in the early hours of the morning of 30th May 2009 between 2-30 a.m. to 5-30 a.m., with full knowledge that his suspicious movements at odd hours would attract the attention of security guards posted in the area, unless the person would be sure of connivance from the watchful vision of the guards….
“In the present case, the disposal of dead bodies in the centre of security ring, with mathematical precision and like surgical operation to ensure that no visible trails are left, cannot be said to be the handiwork of a private individual but would need the support of some agency. Although conclusive evidence to identify the culprit has not been furnished before the Commission because of unfortunate obstructions caused by certain dissenting political parties in the working of the Commission, yet there is material on the file to hold that the involvement of some agency of J&K police, in the present incident, cannot be completely ruled out.”
Involved, evidently, were men with a clout. Hence the cover-up at all levels.
That is not all. It may be recalled that only a few days after the crime, the correspondent of a TV channel had made innuendoes against the two women. Justice Muzaffar Jan’s report is, if anything, more perverted in its reasoning and salacious insinuation. They occur in the Final Report, significantly. The investigating team of the Commission of Inquiry, headed by Haseeb Mughal, S.P., examined 33 cellphones of some witnesses. “The aim of the exercise was to establish any direct or indirect link between the victims and the suspects. The exercise was taken up to know the family relations and degree of intimacy of different witnesses with the deceased. Unfortunately the number of the deceased could not be traced, even family members refused to divulge the information before the Commission. The cell phone number of the deceased could have helped the Commission in working out their links and relations with different persons/suspects and could have helped the investigation. The mystery whether they were carrying cell phone or not remains to be unearthed.”
Why, indeed, was this at all necessary given the clear finding of rape and murder? Since this passage recurs repeatedly, verbatim, it was written deliberately. The aim of the exercise was to establish any direct or indirect link between the victims and the suspects. In spite of all the speculation about the cellphone, only a few lines earlier he doubts whether Neelofar had a mobile phone. “In spite of scrutiny of 14,168 incoming calls, 9,825 outgoing calls, 4,041 incoming sms and 4,552 outgoing sms total 32,586 data, the mobile of Neelofar could not be traced.”
Groundless aspersions
The bereaved family of the Shopian victims with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, on June 24.
Haseeb Mughal headed the Commission’s investigating team. The Final Report records on page 96: “Dr. Haseeb Mughal, S.P. assisting the Commission, has prepared extensive note indicating involvement of possible persons in the commission of the present crime. The Report is taken on the file and is marked as Annexure-z2.
“The investigating team of the Commission headed by Dr. Haseeb Mughal, S.P. has examined, questioned and recorded the statements of 64 witnesses separately. The list of the witnesses is annexed as Annexure-z3.” Three pages later (page 99) figures Jan’s signature to his Report. Clearly Annexure-z2 was approved by Muzaffar Jan. It is this Annexure that contains the material which caused an uproar – to wit, Neelofar’s elopement with her husband Shakeel, who was “known for his immoral activities. His assets are quite disproportionate to his known sources of income, thus requiring in-depth investigation to work out the possibility of Shakeel and his friends/associates in the present incident”. The two facts are not connected. Neither is relevant to the inquiry. No scatterbrained person could have done better.
But this is not the job of any such person. There is method in the madness: the very next paragraph casts aspersions on Neelofar, Aasiya and another sister of Shakeel, Roomi Jan: “might have developed some other persons …. He [Shakeel] has [not might have] “come to know about this relation which could have led to the planning and execution of this incident needs thorough interrogation of Shakeel, his friends and associates to find out the truth”. In sum, Shakeel killed his wife and sister.
The aspersion is, at once, groundless, irrelevant to the inquiry, and contradicted by his own findings of rape and murder and disposal of the bodies by a security agency. Whom was Muzaffar Jan seeking to please and whose purpose did he try to serve? Never in all the annals of commissions of inquiry have such irrelevant and disgraceful remarks been made. Even a magistrate knows that in law, rape is rape even if the victims be of bad morals. A lawyer, Abdul Kaleem Shopiani, reported that during the hearings “relations of the victims, it is said, shouted in protest at Justice Jan for his insensitive and humiliating way of questioning” (Greater Kashmir, July 15). The proceedings were not open to the public.
Equally unprecedented is the unseemly row that broke out in public between the Judge and the police officer in the wake of the uproar that greeted the publication of the Final Report on July 11.
The very next day, on July 12, Muzaffar Jan gave three interviews. He said in one that he had submitted his report in 100 pages “but the investigating team headed by S.P. Haseeb Mughal messed up my report and annexed his own 300 pages to my original draft”.
Also: “I never judged media’s role in the aftermath of rape and murder and have said nothing about Shakeel.” He said: “The police team worked independently and compiled the probe report which says all sorts of things about the personal character of the family members of the dead women.” But Haseeb Mughal said, “I was asked by the government to assist Justice Jan and not to compile a report. I used to get the reports and depose the same before the Commission. He compiled the report. Besides, his signature is there on every page of the report” (The Times of India, July 13).
Muzaffar Jan’s claims are totally belied by the text of his report. Further, it has a whole section on “Press Recommendations” comprising three pages and signed by him separately. Jan now said: “I never made any remark on the media’s role”. Another false statement.
He told Riaz Wani of The Indian Express that “he was horrified to find the police report had slipped into the Commission’s official report. “I don’t know how it happened. Maybe [sic] CDs distributed among mediapersons have clubbed them mistakenly. I don’t know.”
Haseeb Mughal, however, rejected Justice Jan’s claim. Only one report had been prepared, he said. “The police investigation team which was working with Justice Jan forms a part of the Commission and is not a separate entity. There cannot be two reports and then a mix up.”
Justice Jan thus disowned portions of his own report. “Police had presented this report to me. But I rejected it. I did not believe in it. It was untrustworthy and wrong information. So I did not incorporate it in my final report.” Another demonstrable falsehood.
Samir Kaul of Asian Age was told the same day: “What has happened is that the investigating team, our police investigating team have also prepared their investigating report which I did not accept, which I did not take on record, which I did not include in the main report…. That is all right. Annexures were there but I have not incorporated anything in the report. You see, if somebody puts up an application before the court, the court keeps the application on the file. We don’t clear off the application. The fact is we have not taken anything from the report.”
Page 96 of the Final Report approvingly refers to Annexure-z2. Besides there are three approving references in the body of the Report to the insinuations in Annexure-z2.
A gross injustice was done to Dr. Nighat Shaheen avowedly – but irrationally – for not carrying out a “confirmatory test” on the corpses during the post-mortem she conducted. Her real crime, however, was that she burst out of the room in tears immediately after the post-mortem on May 30 and proclaimed that it was a case of gang rape. She had to be punished. Predictably, the judge recommended a punishment. She has been suspended by the government. Public clamour alone can set this wrong right.
A cruel and monumental fraud has been played on the people of Kashmir. Sevanti Ninan has rendered high service by exposing in detail in The Hindu of August 2, 2009, the official promotion of a personality cult of Omar Abdullah to buttress his dwindling popularity, the systematic repression of the electronic media and the techniques adopted by the Chief Minister’s right-hand man, Devinder Rana, himself a media baron. (Frontline -Volume 26 - Issue 17 :: Aug. 15-28, 2009)
A flawed inquiry
A.G. NOORANI
The inquiry commission’s report on the Shopian incident is a monumental fraud on the people of Kashmir.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah leaves the Assembly after announcing his resignation, on July 28, after the Opposition alleged that he was involved in a sex scandal. He was later persuaded to continue in office.
OMAR ABDULLAH deludes himself when he asserts that his mishandling of the Shopian tragedy, his first big political test since he became Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir only a few months ago, “will be just a paragraph when his tenure is reviewed six years hence” (The Asian Age, July 22, 2009). If he does not mend his ways, it might define his tenure. For he has revealed unfortunate traits of complacent smugness and arrogant confidence, coupled with a marked proneness to bluff and prevaricate, and has ended up by tying himself into knots. Worse, he subverted the integrity and independence of a judicial inquiry which he himself set up, avowedly to allay public disquiet. Not surprisingly, its report was caught in a welter of charges and denials between the Judge and the police, from which the Judge came out second best.
The facts are simple. On May 29, Aasiya Jan, 17, a schoolgirl, and her sister-in-law, Neelofar Jan, 24, went into their orchard at Degam, Ratpora, across the Rambiara Nullah, around 5 p.m. Neelofar’s husband, Shakeel Ahmed Ahangar, told the press: “When they didn’t return till late in the evening, I went out to search for them. I could not find them anywhere and a neighbour told me that the duo had left for home just when a patrolling party was passing through the area. I then approached the police. At 10 p.m. I, along with a police party led by the Station House Officer, went out in search of Neelofar and Aasiya but couldn’t locate them till 3 a.m., after which we returned.”
On May 30, at 5 a.m., Shakeel, along with the police, again went in search of the women. “I saw Neelofar’s body in the nullah and Aasiya’s body one kilometre away from her”, not far from a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp. The bodies were within the range of the lights of the CRPF and police camps. The road to the orchard goes past these camps. They are visible from the spot where Neelofar’s body was found. It is a high-security area patrolled regularly by the police as the Deputy Commissioner and other officials live there.
A press release issued by the police on May 30 said: “Post-mortem conducted revealed no marks on the dead bodies including private parts.” After some time, another police press release cancelled it, but without admitting to any wrongdoing. No first information report (FIR) was filed, however.
News of the tragedy spread like wildfire all over the State on May 30. Another day, May 31, followed. Sometime on June 1, two whole days later, the Chief Minister spoke to the media and called it “a case of drowning”, adding, “the initial findings do not suggest either rape or murder, but now we want to get it cleared beyond doubt.” A judicial inquiry would be set up. But he did not stop at that, as Naseer A. Ganai reported in Greater Kashmir (June 10). He asked the media not to blow “trivial issues out of proportion” – mark the direct quotes – and advised them to use the word “alleged”. He had “questions for the media – ‘Where from [sic] you established that rape has taken place when the government has not been able to establish neither [sic] rape nor the murder?’ He asked the media to be ‘balanced’” (Ganai’s report).
By June 1, two whole days after the crime, he had ample reason not to believe what he said: The police had retracted its press release on May 30; the stream was known to be so shallow as to rule out drowning; the surprising appearance of the corpses at 5 a.m. on May 30 though they were not found at 3 a.m.; the fact that a CRPF camp stood nearby and its lights and those of the police camp covered the area which, besides, was regularly patrolled.
High hopes were expressed when Omar became Chief Minister. He would clean the Augean stables. How would a CEO, appointed to the office in a corruption-ridden corporation, react when he is informed of the first major case that even remotely suggests bribery? Kashmir is notorious for excesses by the security forces, not excluding rape and murder. Its people yearn for a Chief Minister who would stand up for their rights to these forces and to the Centre, not give false explanations. In this case, it was the Centre that pressed Omar to do the decent thing.
And, what inference would you draw if the CEO, having smugly dismissed reports of bribery, patently gives false versions of what he had said? This is precisely what the Chief Minister did thrice. On July 13, he said: “The mistake I made was sharing the initial findings with the press. But I made it clear that the initial findings were not acceptable to the government and that is why we were going for a judicial inquiry” (DNA, July 14; emphasis added throughout).
This is a patent falsehood. He explicitly said on June 1: “Since our probe would not be acceptable to any one, given the scheme of things prevailing in the Valley, we decided to order a judicial probe into the matter” (Kashmir Times, June 2). The Telegraph (July 15) was told the same tale: “I didn’t come there [the press conference on June 1] to suggest that no crime has taken place. I came there to accept that we were dissatisfied with the initial findings and an in-depth inquiry is required….” Yet again he claimed: “The mistake I made was in answering a question on the basis of initial findings. I never bought the police version. Had that been the case, we wouldn’t have gone for the inquiry” (The Times of India, July 28).
This is belied by the press reports of his remarks on June 1; his lecture to the press (say “alleged” and “be balanced”); and the fact that even on June 4 all he could say was that “something has happened there” (Kuchch to hua hai). He then delivered the florid rhetoric that is a trademark of both the Abdullahs, Farooq and Omar: “Neelofar and Aasiya were like my sisters and I, as a brother, feel the pain of the tragedy that has befallen on the victim’s family… I also have three sisters of the same age….” Such rhetoric betrays a profound contempt for the intelligence of the people.
This was not the only remark that strained credibility. On June 1 itself, he quickly appointed Justice Muzaffar Jan, a retired Judge of the High Court, flouting the settled practice of asking that Court or the Supreme Court to name the Judge. The explanation for the breach is a giveaway, so false it is: “The Supreme court’s sanction would have taken at least two months to arrive, and delayed the institution of the Commission” (Kashmir Times, June 5).
It is doubtful if Omar Abdullah’s enormous administrative expertise covers such cases. It is a slur on the Chief Justice of India, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan. It is a matter of record, over the decades, that the CJIs take little or no time to nominate judges. The Chief Minister wanted to have his own hand-picked man. Dismiss the silly innuendo that Justice Muzaffar Jan lived across the road from the Chief Minister. He was not known to be corrupt. He was famous for mediocrity.
To these landmarks – summary dismissal on June 1; a grudging mention on June 4; a hand-picked Judge; and false and belated versions of his June 1 press conference weeks later on July 14 and 27 – add one more. The Chief Minister had to be pressed by his alliance partner, the Congress, even for the filing of an FIR.
FIR under pressure
On June 6, Saturday, Saifuddin Soz, president of the Jammu & Kashmir unit of the Congress, rushed to Srinagar at the behest of the party’s president, Sonia Gandhi. Shubhajit Roy of The Indian Express (June 8) quoted Soz as having told him: “Under pressure the Jammu and Kashmir government late on Sunday night registered a rape case.”
“I met the Chief Minister and expressed our concern,” Soz said, adding that he “explained” to Omar that the police should lodge an FIR on the death of the two women. The FIR that was filed the next day, June 8, covered rape but not murder. An FIR on murder was filed on June 10. Yusuf Jameel’s report was to the same effect. “Soz has met Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, to ask for an FIR to be registered. It is learnt that Mr. Soz was asked by the Congress president Sonia Gandhi to rush to J&K as she was learnt to be very upset at the incident” (The Asian Age, June 8).
It speaks volumes for the state of affairs that (a) the Chief Minister had to be pressed for an FIR to be filed and this, in a case in which women he considered “were like my sisters” were involved and (b) that even the filing of an FIR needed the government’s approval. There is no need for such approval. It is a matter entirely for the police. (Jammu and Kashmir has its own counterparts to Indian codes, but the content is almost identical.)
Section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Code says simply that “every information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence” shall be recorded by an “officer in charge of police station”. It is “information”, not even prima facie proof, that is required. Even a telephonic message can be recorded. Personal knowledge of the crime is not necessary. Suspects need not be named. Investigation follows the filing of an FIR (Section 156). The police are not debarred from investigating because an inquest is held under Section 174. Yet, for such an elementary proposition, officials pleaded before the Commission of Inquiry that they had sought the Advocate-General’s opinion. Another excuse was delay in the receipt of the report of the Forensic Science Laboratory. The post-mortem held on June 30 itself revealed a prima facie case of rape and murder. The report of the Commission of Inquiry says: “It is on record in the admission of all police witnesses that had an FIR been filed immediately after occurrence and proper investigation started, there would have been no public protests and no loss of life of citizens.
“It is also admitted by police witnesses that they were aware of the public anger and resentment for their inaction to register an FIR, in spite of factual and legal justification, yet an FIR was not registered. It is also admitted that with passage of each day, the violence and intensity of protesters increased resulting in damage to private and public property and still no efforts were made to register an FIR” (Final Report, page 86).
Who was responsible for that? Note that the Commission of Inquiry passes those strictures even while readily accepting the absurd excuse of delay because of the Forensic Science Laboratory’s report. We know, however, that it was Sonia Gandhi who prevailed on Omar Abdullah to file an FIR on June 8, over a week after the crime.
On June 8, the Director-General of Police, Kuldeep Khoda, set up a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) “for expeditious investigation of the case regarding alleged rape and subsequent death of two women at Shopian”. The Chief Minister referred to two reports to come – those of the Commission of Inquiry and the SIT (Times of India, June 10). Both began their probes simultaneously and independently (Muzamil Jaleel, The Indian Express, June 13).
It is important to stress this. Criminal trials can proceed simultaneously with commissions of inquiry. But a commission of inquiry also needs its own investigating team to collect the evidence for production before it. Section 5A of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, empowers the commission to “utilise the services” of the state’s “investigation agency” with the consent of the government. The agency reports to the commission (Section 5A (4)), which is bound “to satisfy itself about the correctness of the facts stated and the conclusions, if any, arrived at in the investigation report. It may make such inquiry, as it thinks fit, including the examination of the person or persons who conducted or assisted in the investigation” (Section 5A (5)). The commission of inquiry is the sole master of what goes into the report.
With State officials’ assistance
Hands raised in prayer in a march in protest against the Shopian murders, in Srinagar on June 24. Thousands took part in the march.
That is the law. The reality in this case is altogether different. Let Justice Muzaffar Jan (retired) speak for himself: “Special thanks are due to Dr. Haseeb Mughal, S.P. [Superintendent of Police], who assisted the Commission with professional competence, sincerity of purpose, dedication and tireless energy. Dr. Mughal not only assisted the Commission during investigation but also helped in compilation of the report at all stages” (Final Report; page 101).
Have you ever heard of a police officer/assisting a judge in the “compilation” of his report? This is as unprecedented as Omar Abdullah’s famous conditional resignation on July 28. Muzaffar Jan himself emphasises that the assistance by the Superintendent of Police continued even after the investigations were over. He “helped in compilation of the report at all stages”. This alone suffices to render the report utterly worthless. Mughal is an employee of the State government headed by Omar Abdullah. His intervention robbed the Commission of Inquiry of independence and integrity. The Chief Minister could not have been unaware of that.
Immediately on his appointment to the Commission of Inquiry, Muzaffar Jan exclaimed to a TV channel that he hoped he would fulfil the expectation of the government. He has in full measure. More royalist than the king, he denounces the Hurriyat and other protesters as “anti-national”. Summing up the evidence of Javed Iqbal Mattoo, the S.P. of Shopian, he records his admission that if an FIR had been filed on May 30, covering both rape and murder, “the culprits would have been apprehended” after the investigation and “there would have been no loss of life or hartals and the dissenting anti-national elements would not have made political gain” (Interim Report, Part I, page 13). The italicised words do not belong to the S.P. They are Justice Muzaffar Jan’s comment. The Commission was set up to silence the critics and turn the tables on political opponents.
The Interim Report was published on June 21 and the Final Report on July 10. Understandably, the Commission of Inquiry could not name the perpetrators. The evidence had vanished. The Interim Report finds: “In the instant case, the entire investigating agency including the S.I. [Sub-Inspector] Gazi Abdul Kareem, SHO [Station House Officer] Shafeeq Ahmed, Rohit Baskotra, Dy. S.P., and S.P. Javed Iqbal Mattoo have taken all steps to refuse to investigate the complaint of a gruesome rape and death of two girls in which the interest of the entire society was involved, and required/ sympathetic approach and serious application of mind. The same has not been done by all the four officers…. All the police officers in-charge, district Shopian, appear to be amicably [sic] ignorant of their professional responsibility, and their duty to uphold the honour of their uniform.”
The Final Report records a clear finding of rape and murder: “The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the death of both Neelofar and Aasiya has not been because of any natural cause, but the death of both the girls has been caused with the aim to destroy evidence after rape, by committing their murder.” Despite the evidence, he struggles to hold that it was not a gang rape.
He proceeds to hold: “Weighing the pros and cons of the consistent connivance, in the initial stage of investigation, by the investigating agency, and the subsequent cover-up and manoeuvring by the local police, showing no seriousness in the incident, leads to the irresistible inference that the police had more to hide than to reveal. The only aspect that has to be considered is, why should the police try to cover up facts from the public gaze, was it because of incompetence, or indifference or out of fear of public exposure….
“All the officers of the department stood by the theory of death by drowning with full knowledge and belief that no one in the recent or past history of Shopian has died due to drowning in River Rambi Ara. The official statement of drowning does not convey the mindset of indifference, but depicts an active, intelligent and conscious effort to divert the attention of public from the actual and factual cause of death.”
Referring to the deposit of the corpses on the riverbed between 2-30 a.m. and 5-30 a.m. on May 30, the Final Report says: “It does not appeal to reason that an individual civilian would, on his own, take a grave risk of detection, by carrying the dead bodies in the early hours of the morning of 30th May 2009 between 2-30 a.m. to 5-30 a.m., with full knowledge that his suspicious movements at odd hours would attract the attention of security guards posted in the area, unless the person would be sure of connivance from the watchful vision of the guards….
“In the present case, the disposal of dead bodies in the centre of security ring, with mathematical precision and like surgical operation to ensure that no visible trails are left, cannot be said to be the handiwork of a private individual but would need the support of some agency. Although conclusive evidence to identify the culprit has not been furnished before the Commission because of unfortunate obstructions caused by certain dissenting political parties in the working of the Commission, yet there is material on the file to hold that the involvement of some agency of J&K police, in the present incident, cannot be completely ruled out.”
Involved, evidently, were men with a clout. Hence the cover-up at all levels.
That is not all. It may be recalled that only a few days after the crime, the correspondent of a TV channel had made innuendoes against the two women. Justice Muzaffar Jan’s report is, if anything, more perverted in its reasoning and salacious insinuation. They occur in the Final Report, significantly. The investigating team of the Commission of Inquiry, headed by Haseeb Mughal, S.P., examined 33 cellphones of some witnesses. “The aim of the exercise was to establish any direct or indirect link between the victims and the suspects. The exercise was taken up to know the family relations and degree of intimacy of different witnesses with the deceased. Unfortunately the number of the deceased could not be traced, even family members refused to divulge the information before the Commission. The cell phone number of the deceased could have helped the Commission in working out their links and relations with different persons/suspects and could have helped the investigation. The mystery whether they were carrying cell phone or not remains to be unearthed.”
Why, indeed, was this at all necessary given the clear finding of rape and murder? Since this passage recurs repeatedly, verbatim, it was written deliberately. The aim of the exercise was to establish any direct or indirect link between the victims and the suspects. In spite of all the speculation about the cellphone, only a few lines earlier he doubts whether Neelofar had a mobile phone. “In spite of scrutiny of 14,168 incoming calls, 9,825 outgoing calls, 4,041 incoming sms and 4,552 outgoing sms total 32,586 data, the mobile of Neelofar could not be traced.”
Groundless aspersions
The bereaved family of the Shopian victims with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, on June 24.
Haseeb Mughal headed the Commission’s investigating team. The Final Report records on page 96: “Dr. Haseeb Mughal, S.P. assisting the Commission, has prepared extensive note indicating involvement of possible persons in the commission of the present crime. The Report is taken on the file and is marked as Annexure-z2.
“The investigating team of the Commission headed by Dr. Haseeb Mughal, S.P. has examined, questioned and recorded the statements of 64 witnesses separately. The list of the witnesses is annexed as Annexure-z3.” Three pages later (page 99) figures Jan’s signature to his Report. Clearly Annexure-z2 was approved by Muzaffar Jan. It is this Annexure that contains the material which caused an uproar – to wit, Neelofar’s elopement with her husband Shakeel, who was “known for his immoral activities. His assets are quite disproportionate to his known sources of income, thus requiring in-depth investigation to work out the possibility of Shakeel and his friends/associates in the present incident”. The two facts are not connected. Neither is relevant to the inquiry. No scatterbrained person could have done better.
But this is not the job of any such person. There is method in the madness: the very next paragraph casts aspersions on Neelofar, Aasiya and another sister of Shakeel, Roomi Jan: “might have developed some other persons …. He [Shakeel] has [not might have] “come to know about this relation which could have led to the planning and execution of this incident needs thorough interrogation of Shakeel, his friends and associates to find out the truth”. In sum, Shakeel killed his wife and sister.
The aspersion is, at once, groundless, irrelevant to the inquiry, and contradicted by his own findings of rape and murder and disposal of the bodies by a security agency. Whom was Muzaffar Jan seeking to please and whose purpose did he try to serve? Never in all the annals of commissions of inquiry have such irrelevant and disgraceful remarks been made. Even a magistrate knows that in law, rape is rape even if the victims be of bad morals. A lawyer, Abdul Kaleem Shopiani, reported that during the hearings “relations of the victims, it is said, shouted in protest at Justice Jan for his insensitive and humiliating way of questioning” (Greater Kashmir, July 15). The proceedings were not open to the public.
Equally unprecedented is the unseemly row that broke out in public between the Judge and the police officer in the wake of the uproar that greeted the publication of the Final Report on July 11.
The very next day, on July 12, Muzaffar Jan gave three interviews. He said in one that he had submitted his report in 100 pages “but the investigating team headed by S.P. Haseeb Mughal messed up my report and annexed his own 300 pages to my original draft”.
Also: “I never judged media’s role in the aftermath of rape and murder and have said nothing about Shakeel.” He said: “The police team worked independently and compiled the probe report which says all sorts of things about the personal character of the family members of the dead women.” But Haseeb Mughal said, “I was asked by the government to assist Justice Jan and not to compile a report. I used to get the reports and depose the same before the Commission. He compiled the report. Besides, his signature is there on every page of the report” (The Times of India, July 13).
Muzaffar Jan’s claims are totally belied by the text of his report. Further, it has a whole section on “Press Recommendations” comprising three pages and signed by him separately. Jan now said: “I never made any remark on the media’s role”. Another false statement.
He told Riaz Wani of The Indian Express that “he was horrified to find the police report had slipped into the Commission’s official report. “I don’t know how it happened. Maybe [sic] CDs distributed among mediapersons have clubbed them mistakenly. I don’t know.”
Haseeb Mughal, however, rejected Justice Jan’s claim. Only one report had been prepared, he said. “The police investigation team which was working with Justice Jan forms a part of the Commission and is not a separate entity. There cannot be two reports and then a mix up.”
Justice Jan thus disowned portions of his own report. “Police had presented this report to me. But I rejected it. I did not believe in it. It was untrustworthy and wrong information. So I did not incorporate it in my final report.” Another demonstrable falsehood.
Samir Kaul of Asian Age was told the same day: “What has happened is that the investigating team, our police investigating team have also prepared their investigating report which I did not accept, which I did not take on record, which I did not include in the main report…. That is all right. Annexures were there but I have not incorporated anything in the report. You see, if somebody puts up an application before the court, the court keeps the application on the file. We don’t clear off the application. The fact is we have not taken anything from the report.”
Page 96 of the Final Report approvingly refers to Annexure-z2. Besides there are three approving references in the body of the Report to the insinuations in Annexure-z2.
A gross injustice was done to Dr. Nighat Shaheen avowedly – but irrationally – for not carrying out a “confirmatory test” on the corpses during the post-mortem she conducted. Her real crime, however, was that she burst out of the room in tears immediately after the post-mortem on May 30 and proclaimed that it was a case of gang rape. She had to be punished. Predictably, the judge recommended a punishment. She has been suspended by the government. Public clamour alone can set this wrong right.
A cruel and monumental fraud has been played on the people of Kashmir. Sevanti Ninan has rendered high service by exposing in detail in The Hindu of August 2, 2009, the official promotion of a personality cult of Omar Abdullah to buttress his dwindling popularity, the systematic repression of the electronic media and the techniques adopted by the Chief Minister’s right-hand man, Devinder Rana, himself a media baron. (Frontline -Volume 26 - Issue 17 :: Aug. 15-28, 2009)
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Gujarat riots
The agony of Gujarat
By K. N. Panikkar
Narendra Modi's Gujarat is a blueprint of the future, if the Indian state comes fully under the control of the Sangh Parivar.
FOR FIVE days from February 28, Ahmedabad, the city of Gandhiji's early experiment with non-violent politics, witnessed an unprecedented communal carnage. What made it unprecedented was that it was not a communal riot, the fury of which Ahmedabadis had in ample measure in the past. It was a state-sponsored, supported and if the eyewitnesses are to be believed, even state-directed attempt at ethnic cleansing. From the RSS Pracharak Chief Minister to the police constable in the street everyone appears to have `admirably' performed his role. While the RSS and VHP goons went around the city armed with lethal weapons, gas and oxygen cylinders and petrol, the state machinery stood aloof, permitting full play to the mayhem. The names of at least two Ministers are mentioned by many victims as instigating and directing the crowd. Both the Chief Minister and the Home Minister are accused of either involvement or abdication of duties, which ensured that the police did not take adequate steps to contain the violence. Hundreds of telephone calls were made to Ministers, to police officials and other Government functionaries from different localities for succour, only to be greeted with indifference and in many cases with scorn. Are we not citizens of this country, asked a young businessman in the Paldi area, a middle class locality in which quite a few apartments owned by Muslims were set on fire.
To the ordinary citizens, the state is a protector, which enables them to lead their lives without fear. Today fear is writ large on the face of the members of the minority community of Gujarat, for they are suddenly faced with the partisanship of the state, without any other source to look for support. This helplessness is the result of the state and its institutions turning communal in the wake of the BJP coming to power. But for the communal character of the state and its antipathy towards the minorities the carnage in Gujarat would not have taken place. Narendra Modi's Gujarat is a blueprint of the future, if the Indian state comes fully under the control of the Sangh Parivar.
The attempt to justify the mass murder of the members of a community by the Chief Minister, the Police Commissioner and a host of BJP-VHP leaders on the grounds of being a spontaneous reaction is appalling. Invoking Newton to lend credence to their deformed minds is an insult to the great scientist. What happened to the passengers of the Sabarmati Express is indeed a heinous crime, which deserves to be sternly dealt with, but the sequel to it is much more than a reaction. The instance was well planned and executed with meticulous precision. The methods adopted and the manner in which the violence was carried out leaves no doubt that long preparation had preceded the event. It is believed that a militia drawn from the VHP and the Bajrang Dal was trained for quite some time. The strength of the crowds that moved around the city was in thousands, well equipped to kill, plunder and destroy property. At any rate, they knew what to do, including how to cut open safes and selectively target establishments. The Godhra incident was the occasion and not the reason for the carnage that followed. The reason is the communalisation of the Hindus, which the Sangh Parivar has carried out during the last many years.
The generalised violence, which engulfed a major part of Ahmedabad, is bound to have multiple motives. Among them the economic interest and religious hatred appear to be dominant. Although religion is a common denomination in the violent incidents all over the city, the former has played a decisive role in the affluent areas. The city broadly falls into two economic and social zones. The old city on the eastern bank of Sabarmati River is relatively poor with more well marked religious community settlements. The western side, on the other hand, is the new business district and the residential area of the affluent class. The upwardly mobile Muslims who have considerable business interests in this area are an eyesore to the middle and business class supporters of the Hindutva brigade. A marketing agency was recently employed to prepare a census of Muslim business establishments, the purpose of which was not then realised by anyone. The gangs which went around the city and systematically destroyed Muslim business premises were well equipped with their names and addresses. Even their looting instincts which was otherwise quite evident did not induce them to target the nearby Hindu establishments. The very first sight of the destruction of property one comes across while driving from the airport to the city is the charred remains of Moti Minar, a hotel owned by a Muslim. More than 1,000 hotels, all of them vegetarian, located on the highways of Gujarat and owned by the Chelliya community of Muslims have been destroyed. Abid Shamshi, who was forced to leave a mixed locality in which he had lived for more than 30 years, fears large-scale migration of Muslims. He feels that the Muslims who have considerable business interests in the State can hardly afford to risk their investment. His fears are not misplaced. In the Naroda fruit market, 17 Muslim-owned shops have been gutted. Even a fruit shop jointly run by a Muslim and a Hindu, Ebrahim and Ramanlal, for the last 40 years was torched. Hardly a single Muslim business establishment has been spared. The Hindutva message to the minorities, as Prof. Shamshi says, is clear: there is no place for them in the nation, except by sufferance.
The colonies on the east bank witnessed the most brutal violence. These are colonies inhabited by poor Muslims, most of them daily wage workers, living in hutments clustered together in narrow lanes. They were raided by thousands of well-armed VHP-RSS activists, in some areas led by local leaders. One of the worst hit area is Naroda where the entire colony of more than 5,000 inhabitants was repeatedly attacked, subjecting women to unprintable atrocities. Ram Sajeevan Saroj who was a witness to the attack said about 15,000 people roamed the area from 9 a.m. till late in the night. The police was conspicuously absent leaving the locality completely under the control of the armed mob. One of the activists tried to alert the police and the Home Minister without any success. About 700 people were reportedly killed in Naroda, some of than pushed into a well. Several women were gangraped and the number of young girls missing is not yet certain. Similar incidents were repeated in almost all colonies. Consequently, those who were able to escape have fled for safety and there are now more than 50,000 people in different relief camps run by NGOs and other organisations. Incidentally, the Government has not so far come forward in an effective manner to provide succour to Another target of mob fury was the places of worship. About 30 mosques and dargahs have been razed to the ground. The events of the last few days indicate how brutalising communalism is. It destroys all noble sentiments in human beings. Gujarati society was ravaged by its worst manifestation. But even in such frightening situations what is essentially humane asserts itself. In different areas where the Hindutva goons had let loose a reign of terror, several Hindus have tried to protect and help the victims. But RSS pracharaks such as Mr. Modi, incapable of such response are pushing the nation to a dangerous brink. If India is not to be decimated by a civil war as in the case of Bosnia, the agony of Gujarat should not occur again, anywhere in the country. Does our political class have the foresight and energy to ensure that? (http://peaceandhumanity.blogspot.com/2009/06/gujarat-riots.html)
By K. N. Panikkar
Narendra Modi's Gujarat is a blueprint of the future, if the Indian state comes fully under the control of the Sangh Parivar.
FOR FIVE days from February 28, Ahmedabad, the city of Gandhiji's early experiment with non-violent politics, witnessed an unprecedented communal carnage. What made it unprecedented was that it was not a communal riot, the fury of which Ahmedabadis had in ample measure in the past. It was a state-sponsored, supported and if the eyewitnesses are to be believed, even state-directed attempt at ethnic cleansing. From the RSS Pracharak Chief Minister to the police constable in the street everyone appears to have `admirably' performed his role. While the RSS and VHP goons went around the city armed with lethal weapons, gas and oxygen cylinders and petrol, the state machinery stood aloof, permitting full play to the mayhem. The names of at least two Ministers are mentioned by many victims as instigating and directing the crowd. Both the Chief Minister and the Home Minister are accused of either involvement or abdication of duties, which ensured that the police did not take adequate steps to contain the violence. Hundreds of telephone calls were made to Ministers, to police officials and other Government functionaries from different localities for succour, only to be greeted with indifference and in many cases with scorn. Are we not citizens of this country, asked a young businessman in the Paldi area, a middle class locality in which quite a few apartments owned by Muslims were set on fire.
To the ordinary citizens, the state is a protector, which enables them to lead their lives without fear. Today fear is writ large on the face of the members of the minority community of Gujarat, for they are suddenly faced with the partisanship of the state, without any other source to look for support. This helplessness is the result of the state and its institutions turning communal in the wake of the BJP coming to power. But for the communal character of the state and its antipathy towards the minorities the carnage in Gujarat would not have taken place. Narendra Modi's Gujarat is a blueprint of the future, if the Indian state comes fully under the control of the Sangh Parivar.
The attempt to justify the mass murder of the members of a community by the Chief Minister, the Police Commissioner and a host of BJP-VHP leaders on the grounds of being a spontaneous reaction is appalling. Invoking Newton to lend credence to their deformed minds is an insult to the great scientist. What happened to the passengers of the Sabarmati Express is indeed a heinous crime, which deserves to be sternly dealt with, but the sequel to it is much more than a reaction. The instance was well planned and executed with meticulous precision. The methods adopted and the manner in which the violence was carried out leaves no doubt that long preparation had preceded the event. It is believed that a militia drawn from the VHP and the Bajrang Dal was trained for quite some time. The strength of the crowds that moved around the city was in thousands, well equipped to kill, plunder and destroy property. At any rate, they knew what to do, including how to cut open safes and selectively target establishments. The Godhra incident was the occasion and not the reason for the carnage that followed. The reason is the communalisation of the Hindus, which the Sangh Parivar has carried out during the last many years.
The generalised violence, which engulfed a major part of Ahmedabad, is bound to have multiple motives. Among them the economic interest and religious hatred appear to be dominant. Although religion is a common denomination in the violent incidents all over the city, the former has played a decisive role in the affluent areas. The city broadly falls into two economic and social zones. The old city on the eastern bank of Sabarmati River is relatively poor with more well marked religious community settlements. The western side, on the other hand, is the new business district and the residential area of the affluent class. The upwardly mobile Muslims who have considerable business interests in this area are an eyesore to the middle and business class supporters of the Hindutva brigade. A marketing agency was recently employed to prepare a census of Muslim business establishments, the purpose of which was not then realised by anyone. The gangs which went around the city and systematically destroyed Muslim business premises were well equipped with their names and addresses. Even their looting instincts which was otherwise quite evident did not induce them to target the nearby Hindu establishments. The very first sight of the destruction of property one comes across while driving from the airport to the city is the charred remains of Moti Minar, a hotel owned by a Muslim. More than 1,000 hotels, all of them vegetarian, located on the highways of Gujarat and owned by the Chelliya community of Muslims have been destroyed. Abid Shamshi, who was forced to leave a mixed locality in which he had lived for more than 30 years, fears large-scale migration of Muslims. He feels that the Muslims who have considerable business interests in the State can hardly afford to risk their investment. His fears are not misplaced. In the Naroda fruit market, 17 Muslim-owned shops have been gutted. Even a fruit shop jointly run by a Muslim and a Hindu, Ebrahim and Ramanlal, for the last 40 years was torched. Hardly a single Muslim business establishment has been spared. The Hindutva message to the minorities, as Prof. Shamshi says, is clear: there is no place for them in the nation, except by sufferance.
The colonies on the east bank witnessed the most brutal violence. These are colonies inhabited by poor Muslims, most of them daily wage workers, living in hutments clustered together in narrow lanes. They were raided by thousands of well-armed VHP-RSS activists, in some areas led by local leaders. One of the worst hit area is Naroda where the entire colony of more than 5,000 inhabitants was repeatedly attacked, subjecting women to unprintable atrocities. Ram Sajeevan Saroj who was a witness to the attack said about 15,000 people roamed the area from 9 a.m. till late in the night. The police was conspicuously absent leaving the locality completely under the control of the armed mob. One of the activists tried to alert the police and the Home Minister without any success. About 700 people were reportedly killed in Naroda, some of than pushed into a well. Several women were gangraped and the number of young girls missing is not yet certain. Similar incidents were repeated in almost all colonies. Consequently, those who were able to escape have fled for safety and there are now more than 50,000 people in different relief camps run by NGOs and other organisations. Incidentally, the Government has not so far come forward in an effective manner to provide succour to Another target of mob fury was the places of worship. About 30 mosques and dargahs have been razed to the ground. The events of the last few days indicate how brutalising communalism is. It destroys all noble sentiments in human beings. Gujarati society was ravaged by its worst manifestation. But even in such frightening situations what is essentially humane asserts itself. In different areas where the Hindutva goons had let loose a reign of terror, several Hindus have tried to protect and help the victims. But RSS pracharaks such as Mr. Modi, incapable of such response are pushing the nation to a dangerous brink. If India is not to be decimated by a civil war as in the case of Bosnia, the agony of Gujarat should not occur again, anywhere in the country. Does our political class have the foresight and energy to ensure that? (http://peaceandhumanity.blogspot.com/2009/06/gujarat-riots.html)
Gujarat riots
Gujarat SIT begins setting up Witness Protection Cell
The Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court to reinvestigate nine post-Godhra riot cases has set up a Witness Protection Cell (WPC) headed by an IPS officer. The modalities of the witness protection process are likely to be decided after a meeting with SIT Chief R K Raghavan in a day or two. Raghavan is in Gujarat to review the progress of the investigation and chart its future course. According to sources, the WPC will have on board M V Damor, an IPS officer who will act as the nodal officer for the cell, N S Joshi, IPS and two sub-inspectors, Mini Joseph and Ashutosh Parmar. Damor is presently posted as Commandant of Group 12 of the State Reserve Police (SRP) while Joshi is posted as Assistant Commissioner of Police with the Immigration Department of the Ahmedabad Special Branch. Sources added that the SIT was shortly going to announce telephone numbers which could be used by the witnesses if they faced any harassment. The SIT is also considering deployment of paramilitary forces for the protection of witnesses. (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Gujarat-SIT-begins-setting-up-Witness-Protection-Cell/473961)
Gujarat appoints prosecutors for 7 riot cases
Manas Dasgupta
GANDHINAGAR: The Gujarat government has appointed public prosecutors for seven of the nine 2002 communal riot-related cases to be tried in fast track courts by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team. The Law Department issued a notification on Monday appointing 16 public prosecutors to represent the SIT. An official spokesman said here the public prosecutors for the two remaining cases, the Gulberg Society massacre in Ahmedabad and the incident at Ode near Anand, would be appointed in the next few days. For the seven cases, the government has appointed panels of two advocates each. In the cases of Godhra train carnage and Naroda-Patiya massacre, the chief public prosecutor would be helped by two assistants each. As per the Supreme Court’s directive, the Gujarat High Court has already constituted the fast track courts — four in Ahmedabad, two each in Anand and Mehsana and one in Himmatnagar in Sabarkantha district for the trial of the nine relatively very gruesome riot incidents being probed afresh by the SIT. R.K. Raghavan, Chairman of the SIT, personally checked the antecedents of the government pleaders before advising the Law Ministry on the appointment of the public prosecutors. The court proceedings are expected to begin in full swing once the courts reopen after summer vacation. (ttp://www.hindu.com/2009/06/09/stories/2009060960601000.htm)
Court expresses concern over leakage of Gujarat SIT report
Legal Correspondent
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed concern over selective leakage of the Special Investigation Team’s report on the Gujarat riots cases in the media, while reserving its verdict on a batch of petitions filed by the National Human Rights Commission and others.A three-judge Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat, P. Sathasivam and Aftab Alam took on record suggestions given by the amicus curiae, the NHRC, the Gujarat government and Citizens for Justice and Peace. The Supreme Court had stayed the trial of over a dozen cases following a demand for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation. When senior counsel Indira Jaising complained to the court about a report (relating to Teesta Setalvad) in an English daily, quoting excerpts from the SIT report, Justice Pasayat said: “The SIT report is in a way a charge sheet given to the Supreme Court. That is why we have not given copies to all. We gave copies only to the State of Gujarat and amicus curiae.”Justice Pasayat showed counsel copies of the SIT report given to the Court still in sealed covers. “If anybody has given a copy or access of the report [to the newspaper] he has betrayed the trust of this Court. We don’t approve of this. We deplore this…” Justice Alam said: “Whoever did it, this is grossly unjustifiable. It should not have been done. It is a grossly irresponsible act and we feel ashamed.”Ms. Jaising accused the Gujarat government’s senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi of divulging the contents of the SIT report to the electronic media. “I am entitled to speak to television channel," Mr. Rohatgi retorted. However, Justice Pasayat cautioned Mr. Rohatgi not to mention anything selectively about the report.Earlier, senior counsel Harish Salve, amicus curiae, in his suggestions underlined the importance of continuing with the SIT and taking directions from the Supreme Court from time to time. Justice Pasayat indicated that the SIT would continue to function. Mr. Salve pleaded for vacating the stay of trial in these cases. (http://www.hinduonnet.com/2009/04/22/stories/2009042262650100.htm)
Gujarat's proclivity to violence
The making of the carnage in Gujarat has its roots in the more pervasive and everyday culture of the region. It is distinctly linked to the retention of a social order that privileges hierarchy and relations of dominance and subordination to the growth of a backward capitalism, and to the failure of a political apparatus. In such a corrupted social sphere, it is not surprising that fundamentalisms have found ready and willing participants, says A.R. VASAVI. THE recent carnage in Gujarat marked both a continuity and a new beginning in the production of communal violence. It was a continuation of the long years of sporadic communalism and the beginning of a new phase in which violence was organised and orchestrated with the abetment of the State. As so many others have observed, this regional and national shame and sorrow was orchestrated by members of the Sangh Parivar that is emboldened by the fact that the State is constituted by its members and that they will be protected by it. But, the making of this carnage has roots in the more pervasive and everyday culture of the region, the roots of which are more complex and are linked to the retention of a social order that privileges hierarchy and relations of dominance and subordination, the growth of a backward capitalism, and the failure of the political apparatus. This culture consists of many facets that range from the continued dominance of the upper caste in the region to the new symbols and patterns of consumer capitalism. As the anthropologist Jan Breman has so well documented, Gujarat's agrarian social order still continues to retain its pre-modern structure and relations. The lower-caste groups form not only the pool of agricultural labour but are also tied in forms of agrestic servitude, including that of bonded labour (known is the region as hali) to upper-caste land owners. That caste segregation, difference, discrimination and hostility continue to mark the lives of people was evident in the aftermath of the 2001 earthquake, when even relief supplies and emergency aid were allocated on the bases of caste. As studies by institutions such as the Behavioural Science Centre in St. Xavier's College, Ahmedabad, and the NGO, Navsaran, have documented, atrocities against low-ranked caste persons are not only rampant, but basic rights such as the rights to minimum wages and access to resources are also constantly contested by the dominant land and capital owning caste groups. While large parts of the State's arid and semi-arid belt remain without adequate drought-proofing and drought-alleviation strategies, the landed, dominant caste groups and the successful trading community have hijacked the agenda of development. It is little wonder that despite the reliable documentation of the long-term negative impact of the Narmada dam, a large number of Gujarati peasants and middle classes besides the regular investors have invested substantially in the scheme and remain enamoured by the potential of the gigantic dam and are hostile to the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The rejection of the ideas and practices of social and economic equality, human and citizenship rights, and secularisation of society can be linked to the growth of a cult of capital. Ithas meant the privileging of a culture in which capital accumulation by any means is the dominant norm. The implications are several. For one, occupational and life success are defined by the volume of one's wealth regardless of the sources and means of such wealth. Is it any wonder that Harshad Mehta, the nation's biggest stock scamster, had become the role model for many teenagers? Further, the need to retain the hegemony of the upper castes has led to the hostility and resentment against most Government directed social justice policies and programmes and to their subsequent thwarting. The resentment and violence that was evident during the anti-Mandal agitations testify to this. A culture that privileges wealth accumulation by any means also negates the ability to generate and sustain an orientation to learning and knowledge. The result of this has meant the inability of the society to generate a broader culture in which the positive elements of its "traditions" could have combined to foster adherence to universalist values of tolerance, pluralism, civic engagement, and secularism. In fact, the disregard for even the rudiments of "modern" education has led, in Ahmedabad, to a shortage of mid-level professionals and the subsequent reliance on English educated mid-level professionals from other States to fill in this gap. But even among those who do occupy such positions and posts, most see their employment as only assured security and most moonlight as insurance agents or spend a large proportion of their working hours in transacting investments in stocks and shares. While Ahmedabad has always had the reputation of having the most complicated and effective ways to evade taxes, the large-scale collapse of high-rise buildings in the city, in the aftermath of the 2001 earthquake, stood as testimony to the rampant violation of building and civic regulations. Few regional cultures in the nation suffer from the "afflictions of affluence" as much as the dominant Gujarati culture. The post-1991 liberalisation agenda has only strengthened this cult of capital. The established norm of accumulation is combined with the new culture of conspicuous consumption. But even as this consumerism marks Ahmedabad with its symbols of affluence and a good life, the lives of the working poor have been continually degraded. Since the 1980s, several unaccountable and irresponsible industrial houses have shut factories and workshops leaving the workers with no security or compensation. The State has compounded workers' distress by not providing sustenance or alternative livelihoods. As in most cities, Ahmedabad's informal sector has swelled with the displaced industrial workers and the growing rural immigrants. Forming the backbone of the city's menial and service labour force, the poor live in ghettoised settlements, the conditions of which would make Dicken's London look like paradise.
Such social and cultural conditions have been compounded by the growing criminalisation of politics, rampant corruption in all levels of bureaucracy and administration and the absence of any committed civil society. In such a corrupted social sphere, the long arm of fundamentalisms, of pan-Islamism and Hindutva has found ready and willing participants. Despite the increasing vitiation of the public sphere and the growing animosities and hostilities between different groups, the elite industrial houses have sought to invest in the famed entrepreneurial spirit of the region. Several successful industrial houses such as Nirma and Reliance have started educational institutions that focus on enhancing only the entrepreneurial and capitalist spirit of the region's people. The Gujarati diaspora has also not been an agency and source of genuine modernity. Instead, the NRI Gujarati has become an active agent in renewing "traditional" ties and buttressing the nostalgia-driven search for "Hindu" culture. Further, the absence of any substantial and widespread social reform movement (the Swadhyaya movement is restricted to a fringe area) has compounded the dominance of a caste and communal mentality. In the context of such economic and cultural developments, the need to prescribe to and support the Hindutva agenda has several bases. For one, in its principles and orientations, Hindutva retains the caste-based hierarchical social structure and assures the dominant castes the rights to continue to enjoy the privileges of having a range of people to subordinate. Its symbolic and iconic significance lie in the promise Hindutva makes to retain the supremacy of a Hindu and, therefore, caste order. That people other than the upper caste groups are also subscribers and activists to this agenda testifies to the failure of any alternative social movement and orientation to have gained ground in the region and to the internalisation of the principles of difference and hierarchy among all sections of the people. No space for the voices of the judicious and the tolerant. Despite the slow, but sure, growth of the Hindutva agenda in the region, there have been few active voices against its growing presence and strength. Over the years, the agents of the Sangh Parivar have protested against an exhibition by M. F Hussain, assaulted students on a campus and have made demands for re-naming Ahmedabad as Ambavadi. More significantly, these agents have become crusaders for the Ayodhya issue and while mobilising support among the young, and largely lumpen groups, have spearheaded a hate campaign against the religious minorities. Their activities have included the development of a list that identifies religious minorities, open support for acts such as the brutal killing of Staines and his children, participation in rituals in which Christian tribals have been re-converted to "Hinduism", and the free distribution of trishuls to large numbers of their supporters. Such activities have not only spread and strengthened the support base of the Hindutva mob but have led them to become brazen and brutal. In the midst of such development there has been no space for the voices of the judicious and the tolerant. Observing such trends, many have commented on the irony that these violent incidents should have taken place in the land of Gandhi. Such commentaries overlook the fact that Gandhi did not call for a substantial re-working of the social order or for the eradication of the hierarchical structure of Hindu society. It has been the retention of this hierarchical order and the failure to have absorbed the ideals of modernity that have led to an emergent culture that is evacuated of even the most elementary positive "traditional" principles. Though several examples of this may be cited, perhaps what is striking in this context of violence is the fact that though vegetarianism is a much celebrated and vaunted practice in the dominant culture of region, people overlook the very principle of ahimsa, or non-violence against all creatures and fellow human beings, of which vegetarianism is only a part.Gujarat today encapsulates all the symptoms and signs of a region in which the marketisation of society has been successful but in which neither democratisation nor secularisation have made much headway. In a landscape in which capital, consumerism and communalism mark the everyday lives of people, there has been little scope for talk and debates about the civil, human, and citizenship rights of all people. The environment is marked by intense and insidious competition so much so that the businesses and lives of the religious minorities, especially that of the Muslims, have been construed as the source of a range of problems. Worse yet what makes this recent carnage a marker in the history of communal violence is its organisational structure. In many ways, the orchestration and implementation of the carnage in Ahmedabad and in the numerous towns and villages in the State are similar to the strategy elucidated by the Nazis . The distribution of hate mail and threat letters, the continued atrocities against the Muslims, and the disruptions of peace meetings testify to the extent to which the pogrom has wider acceptance and is embedded in a culture that has lost its principles of humanity and decency. (http://www.hinduonnet.com/mag/2002/05/05/stories/2002050500400100.htm)
The Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court to reinvestigate nine post-Godhra riot cases has set up a Witness Protection Cell (WPC) headed by an IPS officer. The modalities of the witness protection process are likely to be decided after a meeting with SIT Chief R K Raghavan in a day or two. Raghavan is in Gujarat to review the progress of the investigation and chart its future course. According to sources, the WPC will have on board M V Damor, an IPS officer who will act as the nodal officer for the cell, N S Joshi, IPS and two sub-inspectors, Mini Joseph and Ashutosh Parmar. Damor is presently posted as Commandant of Group 12 of the State Reserve Police (SRP) while Joshi is posted as Assistant Commissioner of Police with the Immigration Department of the Ahmedabad Special Branch. Sources added that the SIT was shortly going to announce telephone numbers which could be used by the witnesses if they faced any harassment. The SIT is also considering deployment of paramilitary forces for the protection of witnesses. (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Gujarat-SIT-begins-setting-up-Witness-Protection-Cell/473961)
Gujarat appoints prosecutors for 7 riot cases
Manas Dasgupta
GANDHINAGAR: The Gujarat government has appointed public prosecutors for seven of the nine 2002 communal riot-related cases to be tried in fast track courts by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team. The Law Department issued a notification on Monday appointing 16 public prosecutors to represent the SIT. An official spokesman said here the public prosecutors for the two remaining cases, the Gulberg Society massacre in Ahmedabad and the incident at Ode near Anand, would be appointed in the next few days. For the seven cases, the government has appointed panels of two advocates each. In the cases of Godhra train carnage and Naroda-Patiya massacre, the chief public prosecutor would be helped by two assistants each. As per the Supreme Court’s directive, the Gujarat High Court has already constituted the fast track courts — four in Ahmedabad, two each in Anand and Mehsana and one in Himmatnagar in Sabarkantha district for the trial of the nine relatively very gruesome riot incidents being probed afresh by the SIT. R.K. Raghavan, Chairman of the SIT, personally checked the antecedents of the government pleaders before advising the Law Ministry on the appointment of the public prosecutors. The court proceedings are expected to begin in full swing once the courts reopen after summer vacation. (ttp://www.hindu.com/2009/06/09/stories/2009060960601000.htm)
Court expresses concern over leakage of Gujarat SIT report
Legal Correspondent
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed concern over selective leakage of the Special Investigation Team’s report on the Gujarat riots cases in the media, while reserving its verdict on a batch of petitions filed by the National Human Rights Commission and others.A three-judge Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat, P. Sathasivam and Aftab Alam took on record suggestions given by the amicus curiae, the NHRC, the Gujarat government and Citizens for Justice and Peace. The Supreme Court had stayed the trial of over a dozen cases following a demand for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation. When senior counsel Indira Jaising complained to the court about a report (relating to Teesta Setalvad) in an English daily, quoting excerpts from the SIT report, Justice Pasayat said: “The SIT report is in a way a charge sheet given to the Supreme Court. That is why we have not given copies to all. We gave copies only to the State of Gujarat and amicus curiae.”Justice Pasayat showed counsel copies of the SIT report given to the Court still in sealed covers. “If anybody has given a copy or access of the report [to the newspaper] he has betrayed the trust of this Court. We don’t approve of this. We deplore this…” Justice Alam said: “Whoever did it, this is grossly unjustifiable. It should not have been done. It is a grossly irresponsible act and we feel ashamed.”Ms. Jaising accused the Gujarat government’s senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi of divulging the contents of the SIT report to the electronic media. “I am entitled to speak to television channel," Mr. Rohatgi retorted. However, Justice Pasayat cautioned Mr. Rohatgi not to mention anything selectively about the report.Earlier, senior counsel Harish Salve, amicus curiae, in his suggestions underlined the importance of continuing with the SIT and taking directions from the Supreme Court from time to time. Justice Pasayat indicated that the SIT would continue to function. Mr. Salve pleaded for vacating the stay of trial in these cases. (http://www.hinduonnet.com/2009/04/22/stories/2009042262650100.htm)
Gujarat's proclivity to violence
The making of the carnage in Gujarat has its roots in the more pervasive and everyday culture of the region. It is distinctly linked to the retention of a social order that privileges hierarchy and relations of dominance and subordination to the growth of a backward capitalism, and to the failure of a political apparatus. In such a corrupted social sphere, it is not surprising that fundamentalisms have found ready and willing participants, says A.R. VASAVI. THE recent carnage in Gujarat marked both a continuity and a new beginning in the production of communal violence. It was a continuation of the long years of sporadic communalism and the beginning of a new phase in which violence was organised and orchestrated with the abetment of the State. As so many others have observed, this regional and national shame and sorrow was orchestrated by members of the Sangh Parivar that is emboldened by the fact that the State is constituted by its members and that they will be protected by it. But, the making of this carnage has roots in the more pervasive and everyday culture of the region, the roots of which are more complex and are linked to the retention of a social order that privileges hierarchy and relations of dominance and subordination, the growth of a backward capitalism, and the failure of the political apparatus. This culture consists of many facets that range from the continued dominance of the upper caste in the region to the new symbols and patterns of consumer capitalism. As the anthropologist Jan Breman has so well documented, Gujarat's agrarian social order still continues to retain its pre-modern structure and relations. The lower-caste groups form not only the pool of agricultural labour but are also tied in forms of agrestic servitude, including that of bonded labour (known is the region as hali) to upper-caste land owners. That caste segregation, difference, discrimination and hostility continue to mark the lives of people was evident in the aftermath of the 2001 earthquake, when even relief supplies and emergency aid were allocated on the bases of caste. As studies by institutions such as the Behavioural Science Centre in St. Xavier's College, Ahmedabad, and the NGO, Navsaran, have documented, atrocities against low-ranked caste persons are not only rampant, but basic rights such as the rights to minimum wages and access to resources are also constantly contested by the dominant land and capital owning caste groups. While large parts of the State's arid and semi-arid belt remain without adequate drought-proofing and drought-alleviation strategies, the landed, dominant caste groups and the successful trading community have hijacked the agenda of development. It is little wonder that despite the reliable documentation of the long-term negative impact of the Narmada dam, a large number of Gujarati peasants and middle classes besides the regular investors have invested substantially in the scheme and remain enamoured by the potential of the gigantic dam and are hostile to the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The rejection of the ideas and practices of social and economic equality, human and citizenship rights, and secularisation of society can be linked to the growth of a cult of capital. Ithas meant the privileging of a culture in which capital accumulation by any means is the dominant norm. The implications are several. For one, occupational and life success are defined by the volume of one's wealth regardless of the sources and means of such wealth. Is it any wonder that Harshad Mehta, the nation's biggest stock scamster, had become the role model for many teenagers? Further, the need to retain the hegemony of the upper castes has led to the hostility and resentment against most Government directed social justice policies and programmes and to their subsequent thwarting. The resentment and violence that was evident during the anti-Mandal agitations testify to this. A culture that privileges wealth accumulation by any means also negates the ability to generate and sustain an orientation to learning and knowledge. The result of this has meant the inability of the society to generate a broader culture in which the positive elements of its "traditions" could have combined to foster adherence to universalist values of tolerance, pluralism, civic engagement, and secularism. In fact, the disregard for even the rudiments of "modern" education has led, in Ahmedabad, to a shortage of mid-level professionals and the subsequent reliance on English educated mid-level professionals from other States to fill in this gap. But even among those who do occupy such positions and posts, most see their employment as only assured security and most moonlight as insurance agents or spend a large proportion of their working hours in transacting investments in stocks and shares. While Ahmedabad has always had the reputation of having the most complicated and effective ways to evade taxes, the large-scale collapse of high-rise buildings in the city, in the aftermath of the 2001 earthquake, stood as testimony to the rampant violation of building and civic regulations. Few regional cultures in the nation suffer from the "afflictions of affluence" as much as the dominant Gujarati culture. The post-1991 liberalisation agenda has only strengthened this cult of capital. The established norm of accumulation is combined with the new culture of conspicuous consumption. But even as this consumerism marks Ahmedabad with its symbols of affluence and a good life, the lives of the working poor have been continually degraded. Since the 1980s, several unaccountable and irresponsible industrial houses have shut factories and workshops leaving the workers with no security or compensation. The State has compounded workers' distress by not providing sustenance or alternative livelihoods. As in most cities, Ahmedabad's informal sector has swelled with the displaced industrial workers and the growing rural immigrants. Forming the backbone of the city's menial and service labour force, the poor live in ghettoised settlements, the conditions of which would make Dicken's London look like paradise.
Such social and cultural conditions have been compounded by the growing criminalisation of politics, rampant corruption in all levels of bureaucracy and administration and the absence of any committed civil society. In such a corrupted social sphere, the long arm of fundamentalisms, of pan-Islamism and Hindutva has found ready and willing participants. Despite the increasing vitiation of the public sphere and the growing animosities and hostilities between different groups, the elite industrial houses have sought to invest in the famed entrepreneurial spirit of the region. Several successful industrial houses such as Nirma and Reliance have started educational institutions that focus on enhancing only the entrepreneurial and capitalist spirit of the region's people. The Gujarati diaspora has also not been an agency and source of genuine modernity. Instead, the NRI Gujarati has become an active agent in renewing "traditional" ties and buttressing the nostalgia-driven search for "Hindu" culture. Further, the absence of any substantial and widespread social reform movement (the Swadhyaya movement is restricted to a fringe area) has compounded the dominance of a caste and communal mentality. In the context of such economic and cultural developments, the need to prescribe to and support the Hindutva agenda has several bases. For one, in its principles and orientations, Hindutva retains the caste-based hierarchical social structure and assures the dominant castes the rights to continue to enjoy the privileges of having a range of people to subordinate. Its symbolic and iconic significance lie in the promise Hindutva makes to retain the supremacy of a Hindu and, therefore, caste order. That people other than the upper caste groups are also subscribers and activists to this agenda testifies to the failure of any alternative social movement and orientation to have gained ground in the region and to the internalisation of the principles of difference and hierarchy among all sections of the people. No space for the voices of the judicious and the tolerant. Despite the slow, but sure, growth of the Hindutva agenda in the region, there have been few active voices against its growing presence and strength. Over the years, the agents of the Sangh Parivar have protested against an exhibition by M. F Hussain, assaulted students on a campus and have made demands for re-naming Ahmedabad as Ambavadi. More significantly, these agents have become crusaders for the Ayodhya issue and while mobilising support among the young, and largely lumpen groups, have spearheaded a hate campaign against the religious minorities. Their activities have included the development of a list that identifies religious minorities, open support for acts such as the brutal killing of Staines and his children, participation in rituals in which Christian tribals have been re-converted to "Hinduism", and the free distribution of trishuls to large numbers of their supporters. Such activities have not only spread and strengthened the support base of the Hindutva mob but have led them to become brazen and brutal. In the midst of such development there has been no space for the voices of the judicious and the tolerant. Observing such trends, many have commented on the irony that these violent incidents should have taken place in the land of Gandhi. Such commentaries overlook the fact that Gandhi did not call for a substantial re-working of the social order or for the eradication of the hierarchical structure of Hindu society. It has been the retention of this hierarchical order and the failure to have absorbed the ideals of modernity that have led to an emergent culture that is evacuated of even the most elementary positive "traditional" principles. Though several examples of this may be cited, perhaps what is striking in this context of violence is the fact that though vegetarianism is a much celebrated and vaunted practice in the dominant culture of region, people overlook the very principle of ahimsa, or non-violence against all creatures and fellow human beings, of which vegetarianism is only a part.Gujarat today encapsulates all the symptoms and signs of a region in which the marketisation of society has been successful but in which neither democratisation nor secularisation have made much headway. In a landscape in which capital, consumerism and communalism mark the everyday lives of people, there has been little scope for talk and debates about the civil, human, and citizenship rights of all people. The environment is marked by intense and insidious competition so much so that the businesses and lives of the religious minorities, especially that of the Muslims, have been construed as the source of a range of problems. Worse yet what makes this recent carnage a marker in the history of communal violence is its organisational structure. In many ways, the orchestration and implementation of the carnage in Ahmedabad and in the numerous towns and villages in the State are similar to the strategy elucidated by the Nazis . The distribution of hate mail and threat letters, the continued atrocities against the Muslims, and the disruptions of peace meetings testify to the extent to which the pogrom has wider acceptance and is embedded in a culture that has lost its principles of humanity and decency. (http://www.hinduonnet.com/mag/2002/05/05/stories/2002050500400100.htm)
Friday, May 29, 2009
Interview
Pak in cahoots with US to implement western agenda
An exclusive interview of Amir Izzat Khan, spokesperson of Tehreek- e- Nifaz –e- Shariat- e- Mohammadi (TNSM) Malakand division of NWFP Pakistan after the break down of the agreement signed between TNSM and Government of Pakistan on implementation of Shariat Law (Nizam-e -Adal) in the region. He spoke with R .C GANJOO. Excerpts:
Q: Why the agreement on implementation of Shariat and Nizam- e- Adal (Islamic Judicial System) announced on 16 February 2009 for Malakand division by Government of Pakistan broke down within days?
Amir Izzat Khan: We had started peace camps from Oct 10, 2008.We have demanded if government establishes Shariat law in the Malakand division we take the responsibility of peace in the region. On Feb 16, 2009 government signed an agreement for Malakand division in which it was decided that Islamic judicial system will function accordingly and Qazis would be appointed with muual consent. Subsequently we wound up our peace camps and we went back to Swat area. With dilly dallying tactics the government did not appoint Qazis (Islamic Judicial Oofficers) till first week of April, thereafter proceeded without our consent and simultaneously launched military operations in lower Dir area, the native village of TNSM chief Maulana Sofi Mohammad. We again requested the government to stop army operations but the governments intentions were mala fide as a result of that the situation in the region turned worse.
Q: It is reported that after the agreement in Swat the Talibans went to Buner and created violence there. And that could be the reason that the government launched military operations?
Khan: This agreement was not only for Swat but for the complete Malakand division in which eight districts fall including Buner. As for as Swat is concerned operation in the area was already on and people of Buner had joined them, but after the agreement the people went back to their respective districts of Malakand division, but the government projected this retreat of people as aggression of Talibans from Swat to other districts. It was the wrong projection of Talibans. There was no violence as such in Buner nor the Talibans created obstacles in the functioning of the government. The situation was absolutely normal and there was no need of army operation.
Q: Then why did the army launch its operations?
Khan: World knows it that our rulers don’t function on their own. They work under the command of others. Our provincial government of NWFP was sincere from day one but reasons for conducting army operations are well known to Pakistani rulers.
Q: Can you explain on whose direction Pak rulers function?
Khan: Our decisions are taken at Washington not in Islamabad. In US, Russia, India, and China or in any other country legislations are framed at peoples’ will but here we Muslims in majority are ruled by Western powers. We the Muslim 99% in majority is ruled by Western powers.
Q: It has been widely reported in Pakistan newspapers that in Malakand division the Pakistan army is acting on the US directions. What interest does the US have in this area?
Khan: Obviously, US want to put South Asian countries under their thumb. Therefore they create disturbances here and there hence want to establish their rule in the area. Our leaders visit Washington so frequently just to get directions even for small internal problems. US has a definite agenda for this region and our rulers know it very well and the decision of US are being implemented in Pakistan quietly.
Q: The Pakistan government claims that it is our battle against terrorism, what do you say about it?
Khan: In fact US don’t want to get Islamic judicial system established here. There is no terrorism here as such. The people feel safe under our traditional Islamic Judicial system. In past, Malakand division as a state was having traditional Islamic judicial system called Jirga, before its merger with Pakistan’s federal set up. But in 1984 this Jirga system was abolished as a result of that dissatisfaction swelled up in the region. The people of Malakand region raised the demand of restoration of Jirga system within the parameters of Law of the land but we were never heard. In 1999 again an agreement was signed for restoration of Jirga system. But it also fell flat. In 2008, the demand cropped up but again it was suppressed and gave birth to violence . Now it was Feb 16, 2009 the government again signed an agreement with us thereafter Pakistan parliament endorsed Nizam e Adal Regulation and therefore the government declared openly that Islamic judicial system (Jirga) will be implemented in Malakand division. But due to foreign pressure again the government betrayed us.
Q: You often claim that Islamic Judicial system (Jirga) is beneficial for both Muslims and non Muslims. Then why Jizya (security tax on non Muslims in) was imposed on Sikh community alone and subsequently Sikhs had to flee from the area in large numbers?
Khan: TNSM is meant for complete Malakand division and this Islamic judicial system is entirely different from rest of Pakistan. There is no such incident of discrimination against religious minorities. Here, Sikhs, Christians, Hindus have been regularly attending our meetings. They are fighting along with us for the restoration of our traditional judicial system. When the Pakistan army launched operation in the area Sikh community too caught in the cross firing and they have to flee from their native area like others.
Q: US with the NATO forces in Afghanistan are engaged in the battle there. Do you think that now US with a definite plan is keeping the tribal areas disturbed with the help of Pakistan army to hit Afghanistan from here?
Khan: In Afghanistan there was also Islamic judicial system and US dismantled that set up and in similar fashion they wanted to create hurdles in implementing Islamic judicial system here as well., In this process our rulers have extended full cooperation to them.
Q: Is there any strategy between Afghan Talibans and Malakand division Talibans?
Khan: No. We don’t have any connection with Afghan Talibans. We have only religious affinity with them. We ourselves are in a precarious condition how it is possible for us to extend our help to them.
Q: According to US reports there is nexus between Al Qaeda and Talibans in Malakand division? Is this a fact?
Khan: I deny it with authority. We have no connection with Al Qaeda, our struggle in Malakand division is indigenous.
Q: In a recent statement US Secretary of State Ms. Hillary Clinton claimed that ISI and CIA had jointly created Talibans. What are your comments?
Khan: If there was the backing of ISI or CIA to Talibans of Malakand division, they would not have attacked us. In a very calculated move US has kept Pakistan’s security apparatus in disarray by keeping them involved in inner problems so that Pakistan is divided into pieces.
Q: Pakistan forces have unleashed undeclared war against you. Do you still support the nation’s unity and integrity?
Khan: Our demand of restoration of Islamic judicial system is only for Malakand division, not for Pakistan. We wish no ill will for Pakistan.
Q: It is stated by US that Taliban and Al Qaeda poses direct threat to US.
Khan: If US has a direct threat from us they could have directly attacked us. Why through Pakistan army. They have devised a plan of killing Muslims by Muslims.
Q: Is it a fact that Talibans are using civilians as human shields?
Khan: It is absolutely a false propaganda. We have been struggling for the past 20 years with the active support of people. But now Pakistan army’s continued attacks and bombardments have confined the people to their homes.
Q: How many groups of Taliban are operating in Malakand division? Pakistan authorities blame that a number of groups are active on the direction of foreign countries like Russia, Afghanistan and India.
Khan: It is blatant lie. If it is believed that foreign countries are extending support to us why our Muslim rulers in Pakistan are shying away (remarked sarcastically). We have only one formidable Tehreek –e-Taliban Pakistan (Armed group) with no outside support.
Q: Are Talibans heading towards Islamabad, as it has been claimed by US that they have already touched North of the city.
Khan: No. There is no threat to Islamabad from Talibans. Of course Islamic judicial system is an open threat to Western civilization because they wanted to impose their culture on us.
Q: How many people have been killed and internally displaced in the ongoing military operations?
Khan: In the ongoing military operations old men, women and children are being killed because they can’t flee. According to official reports one thousand people have been killed so far but exact number will be known only after the curfew is lifted and people will go back to their homes. The number of people being killed is much higher and it is increasing day by day. So far twenty five lakh people have been displaced but the figure according to our information is above thirty lacs.
Q: President of Pakistan Mr Asif Ali Zardari has said that military operation will also be conducted in neighbouring Waziristan. What are your comments?
Khan: Pakistan is our country. They are rulers. Whenever, anywhere they want to hit they are free to do so. How can we stop them?
Q: How long you will continue your struggle when world community is turned against you?
Khan: Till the last person of Malakand division is alive our peaceful struggle will continue. TNSM is a force of warriors fighting without arms for the last twenty years. It is Tehrik e Taliban who have picked up the guns and TNSM has no connection with them.
Q: How these fighting Talibans are getting arms and ammunitions?
Khan: We the Pakhtuns are born with guns. Weapons are considered our ornaments and carry it along till grave. Of course, they purchase guns.
Q: What do you expect from Human Rights organisations?
Khan: We expect that the world community should allow us to live with peace according to our own Islamic cultural traditions.
An exclusive interview of Amir Izzat Khan, spokesperson of Tehreek- e- Nifaz –e- Shariat- e- Mohammadi (TNSM) Malakand division of NWFP Pakistan after the break down of the agreement signed between TNSM and Government of Pakistan on implementation of Shariat Law (Nizam-e -Adal) in the region. He spoke with R .C GANJOO. Excerpts:
Q: Why the agreement on implementation of Shariat and Nizam- e- Adal (Islamic Judicial System) announced on 16 February 2009 for Malakand division by Government of Pakistan broke down within days?
Amir Izzat Khan: We had started peace camps from Oct 10, 2008.We have demanded if government establishes Shariat law in the Malakand division we take the responsibility of peace in the region. On Feb 16, 2009 government signed an agreement for Malakand division in which it was decided that Islamic judicial system will function accordingly and Qazis would be appointed with muual consent. Subsequently we wound up our peace camps and we went back to Swat area. With dilly dallying tactics the government did not appoint Qazis (Islamic Judicial Oofficers) till first week of April, thereafter proceeded without our consent and simultaneously launched military operations in lower Dir area, the native village of TNSM chief Maulana Sofi Mohammad. We again requested the government to stop army operations but the governments intentions were mala fide as a result of that the situation in the region turned worse.
Q: It is reported that after the agreement in Swat the Talibans went to Buner and created violence there. And that could be the reason that the government launched military operations?
Khan: This agreement was not only for Swat but for the complete Malakand division in which eight districts fall including Buner. As for as Swat is concerned operation in the area was already on and people of Buner had joined them, but after the agreement the people went back to their respective districts of Malakand division, but the government projected this retreat of people as aggression of Talibans from Swat to other districts. It was the wrong projection of Talibans. There was no violence as such in Buner nor the Talibans created obstacles in the functioning of the government. The situation was absolutely normal and there was no need of army operation.
Q: Then why did the army launch its operations?
Khan: World knows it that our rulers don’t function on their own. They work under the command of others. Our provincial government of NWFP was sincere from day one but reasons for conducting army operations are well known to Pakistani rulers.
Q: Can you explain on whose direction Pak rulers function?
Khan: Our decisions are taken at Washington not in Islamabad. In US, Russia, India, and China or in any other country legislations are framed at peoples’ will but here we Muslims in majority are ruled by Western powers. We the Muslim 99% in majority is ruled by Western powers.
Q: It has been widely reported in Pakistan newspapers that in Malakand division the Pakistan army is acting on the US directions. What interest does the US have in this area?
Khan: Obviously, US want to put South Asian countries under their thumb. Therefore they create disturbances here and there hence want to establish their rule in the area. Our leaders visit Washington so frequently just to get directions even for small internal problems. US has a definite agenda for this region and our rulers know it very well and the decision of US are being implemented in Pakistan quietly.
Q: The Pakistan government claims that it is our battle against terrorism, what do you say about it?
Khan: In fact US don’t want to get Islamic judicial system established here. There is no terrorism here as such. The people feel safe under our traditional Islamic Judicial system. In past, Malakand division as a state was having traditional Islamic judicial system called Jirga, before its merger with Pakistan’s federal set up. But in 1984 this Jirga system was abolished as a result of that dissatisfaction swelled up in the region. The people of Malakand region raised the demand of restoration of Jirga system within the parameters of Law of the land but we were never heard. In 1999 again an agreement was signed for restoration of Jirga system. But it also fell flat. In 2008, the demand cropped up but again it was suppressed and gave birth to violence . Now it was Feb 16, 2009 the government again signed an agreement with us thereafter Pakistan parliament endorsed Nizam e Adal Regulation and therefore the government declared openly that Islamic judicial system (Jirga) will be implemented in Malakand division. But due to foreign pressure again the government betrayed us.
Q: You often claim that Islamic Judicial system (Jirga) is beneficial for both Muslims and non Muslims. Then why Jizya (security tax on non Muslims in) was imposed on Sikh community alone and subsequently Sikhs had to flee from the area in large numbers?
Khan: TNSM is meant for complete Malakand division and this Islamic judicial system is entirely different from rest of Pakistan. There is no such incident of discrimination against religious minorities. Here, Sikhs, Christians, Hindus have been regularly attending our meetings. They are fighting along with us for the restoration of our traditional judicial system. When the Pakistan army launched operation in the area Sikh community too caught in the cross firing and they have to flee from their native area like others.
Q: US with the NATO forces in Afghanistan are engaged in the battle there. Do you think that now US with a definite plan is keeping the tribal areas disturbed with the help of Pakistan army to hit Afghanistan from here?
Khan: In Afghanistan there was also Islamic judicial system and US dismantled that set up and in similar fashion they wanted to create hurdles in implementing Islamic judicial system here as well., In this process our rulers have extended full cooperation to them.
Q: Is there any strategy between Afghan Talibans and Malakand division Talibans?
Khan: No. We don’t have any connection with Afghan Talibans. We have only religious affinity with them. We ourselves are in a precarious condition how it is possible for us to extend our help to them.
Q: According to US reports there is nexus between Al Qaeda and Talibans in Malakand division? Is this a fact?
Khan: I deny it with authority. We have no connection with Al Qaeda, our struggle in Malakand division is indigenous.
Q: In a recent statement US Secretary of State Ms. Hillary Clinton claimed that ISI and CIA had jointly created Talibans. What are your comments?
Khan: If there was the backing of ISI or CIA to Talibans of Malakand division, they would not have attacked us. In a very calculated move US has kept Pakistan’s security apparatus in disarray by keeping them involved in inner problems so that Pakistan is divided into pieces.
Q: Pakistan forces have unleashed undeclared war against you. Do you still support the nation’s unity and integrity?
Khan: Our demand of restoration of Islamic judicial system is only for Malakand division, not for Pakistan. We wish no ill will for Pakistan.
Q: It is stated by US that Taliban and Al Qaeda poses direct threat to US.
Khan: If US has a direct threat from us they could have directly attacked us. Why through Pakistan army. They have devised a plan of killing Muslims by Muslims.
Q: Is it a fact that Talibans are using civilians as human shields?
Khan: It is absolutely a false propaganda. We have been struggling for the past 20 years with the active support of people. But now Pakistan army’s continued attacks and bombardments have confined the people to their homes.
Q: How many groups of Taliban are operating in Malakand division? Pakistan authorities blame that a number of groups are active on the direction of foreign countries like Russia, Afghanistan and India.
Khan: It is blatant lie. If it is believed that foreign countries are extending support to us why our Muslim rulers in Pakistan are shying away (remarked sarcastically). We have only one formidable Tehreek –e-Taliban Pakistan (Armed group) with no outside support.
Q: Are Talibans heading towards Islamabad, as it has been claimed by US that they have already touched North of the city.
Khan: No. There is no threat to Islamabad from Talibans. Of course Islamic judicial system is an open threat to Western civilization because they wanted to impose their culture on us.
Q: How many people have been killed and internally displaced in the ongoing military operations?
Khan: In the ongoing military operations old men, women and children are being killed because they can’t flee. According to official reports one thousand people have been killed so far but exact number will be known only after the curfew is lifted and people will go back to their homes. The number of people being killed is much higher and it is increasing day by day. So far twenty five lakh people have been displaced but the figure according to our information is above thirty lacs.
Q: President of Pakistan Mr Asif Ali Zardari has said that military operation will also be conducted in neighbouring Waziristan. What are your comments?
Khan: Pakistan is our country. They are rulers. Whenever, anywhere they want to hit they are free to do so. How can we stop them?
Q: How long you will continue your struggle when world community is turned against you?
Khan: Till the last person of Malakand division is alive our peaceful struggle will continue. TNSM is a force of warriors fighting without arms for the last twenty years. It is Tehrik e Taliban who have picked up the guns and TNSM has no connection with them.
Q: How these fighting Talibans are getting arms and ammunitions?
Khan: We the Pakhtuns are born with guns. Weapons are considered our ornaments and carry it along till grave. Of course, they purchase guns.
Q: What do you expect from Human Rights organisations?
Khan: We expect that the world community should allow us to live with peace according to our own Islamic cultural traditions.
Courtsy 'Current' Weekly, May 25-31, 2009 (New Delhi) www.currentnews.in
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Gujarat Genocide
DISCOURAGING DISSENT:
Intimidation and Harassment of Witnesses, Human Rights Activists, and Lawyers Pursuing Accountability for the 2002 Communal Violence in Gujarat
. Summary...................................................................................................................................0
II. Background..............................................................................................................................9
III. Cases of Threats, Intimidation and Harassment of Victims, Witnesses, and Activists......................................................................................................................................................12
Official Harassment................................................................................................................12
1. Threats and harassment of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel.............................................13
2. Police Inquiries and Interrogation of Mukhtar Muhammed, Kasimabad Education and Development Society..............................................................................14
3. Police Enquiries and Interrogation of Father Cedric Prakash, Director, Prashant, A Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace.............................................................17
4. Inquiries by the Charity Commissioner of Ahmedabad against human rights activists...............................................................................................................................18
5. Harrassment of Mallika Sarabhai, Darpana Academy of Performing Arts...........20
Anonymous and Individual Threats and Intimidation......................................................22
1. Threats against activists and lawyers working on riot-related cases.......................23
2. Threats against Trupti Shah and Rohit Prajapati, activists with People’s Union for Civil Liberties-Shanti Abhiyan..........................................................................................25
3. Threats against Teesta Setalvad, Citizens for Justice and Peace, and Father Cedric Prakash, Director, Prashant, A Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace..........26
4. Attack on volunteers of Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD).....27
5. Intimidation of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel and other witnesses.............................28
I. Summary
The government of the Indian state of Gujarat continues to obstruct justice and prevent accountability for the perpetrators of violence committed during communal riots in 2002
that left as many as 2,000 Muslims dead.1 The riots occurred after some Muslims allegedly attacked a train carrying Hindu pilgrims and activists. One carriage caught fire and fifty-nine Hindus were killed in the blaze.2 In retaliation, Hindu extremist mobs, often with police participation and complicity, killed hundreds of Muslims and displaced thousands.3
The Gujarat state government, led by Chief Minister Narandra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), not only failed to take appropriate action to prevent the violence, but has since failed to properly investigate the crimes committed. It has consistently sought to impede successful prosecutions of those allegedly involved in the massacres, leading the Supreme Court and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to intervene on several occasions.4
Activists and witnesses pursuing accountability continue to be targeted by influential extremists in Gujarat. The highest levels of government in Gujarat have created an extremely hostile environment.5 Chief Minister Modi has called human rights workers "five-star activists and pseudo-secularists" who are trying to tarnish the image of his state.6 This has encouraged a climate of impunity, where perpetrators of the riots and those that took part in the violence feel they can threaten activists and witnesses to discourage them from pursuing justice, without a response from state authorities.
1 Unofficial, but widely accepted estimates, put the toll in the violence at over 2,000. The Gujarat government claims that there were 851 deaths during the riots, including those killed when police fired their guns in an attempt to contain the rioters. According to police testimony before the Nanavati-Shah commission enquiring into the Gujarat riots, nearly 100 rioters were killed by the police.
2 Testimony by government officials presented to the Gujarat state-appointed Nanavati-Shah Commission looking into the 2002 riots. July 6, 2002.
3 Human Rights Watch, We Have No Orders to Save You: State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat, (New York: Human Rights Watch, April 2002), pp. 21-25. Beginning on February 27, 2002, most of the killings took place in the first five days. Testimony by government officials presented to the Nanavati-Shah Commission looking into the riots says that 80.73 percent of the deaths took place in the first five days.
4 The National Human Rights Commission is an autonomous, statutory body created pursuant to the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993. The NHRC has the same powers as a civil court trying a suit, including summoning and enforcing attendance of witnesses and examining them under oath; compelling discovery and production of any document; receiving evidence on affidavits; requisitioning any public record or copy thereof from any court or office; and issuing commissions for the examination of witnesses or documents. Unlike the rulings of a civil court, however, the commission’s recommendations are not legally binding.
5 Based on meetings with witnesses, activists, and eminent personalities, the NHRC had recommended to the Gujarat government that critical cases be handed over to central government investigators to avoid ‘extraneous’ influences brought to bear on the police. According to NHRC, the Gujarat government refused, claiming that the state police was being discredited on the basis of "hostile propaganda."
6 Kalpana Sharma, "Remembering Gujarat," The Hindu, December 28, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/guj-sharma281203.html (retrieved Aug 20, 2004). As recently as August 2004, on the eve of India’s Independence Day, Modi accused activists of "lending strength to anti-national elements" and "weakening the nation by undermining social values."
1
The Gujarat police have initiated very few criminal investigations and have been largely non-responsive in cases where activists have lodged complaints about threats or attacks. No credible witness protection program has been established by the state government, which seems more interested in protecting those responsible for the violence than witnesses and victims.7
In fact, given the active police participation in the 2002 riots, their failure to protect Muslims as they were attacked and killed in plain view, the lack of any admission of responsibility, or refusal to reform since, witnesses are reluctant to approach the Gujarat police for protection or trust them with information.8 Responding to a demand from witnesses for protection by national forces instead of state police, the Supreme Court on March 15, 2004, indicated its lack of trust of state authorities when it asked the national government to identify key witnesses in nine Gujarat riot cases and deploy central police or paramilitary forces to protect them.9
The climate of fear in Gujarat is so great that activists and witnesses are often reluctant to publicly discuss or even be privately interviewed about the threats they receive for fear of retribution from those who make the threats or their allies, including some in powerful positions in the state government or police.
In several recent incidents, Hindu nationalists have threatened activists and lawyers and even assaulted them. One activist-lawyer working on a case against individuals accused of gang rape and murder, was threatened when she was attending a hearing in court. Although she sent a complaint to the Gujarat Director General of Police, no action has been taken. In another incident, in broad daylight Hindu extremists stoned the vehicles of activists calling for communal harmony and beat up one of the activists.
7 Displaced witnesses and victims now live in clusters and are protected by just a few armed guards posted on the outskirts of squatter settlements. This does not ensure their safety if they go into the general community for errands or meetings, as they can be easily accosted with threats or offers of bribes. Witnesses are vulnerable, activists point out, because the Gujarat government has failed to adequately support several displaced Muslims, many of them key witnesses, who live in these resettlement colonies without electricity, water or medical facilities.
8 Human Rights Watch, "India: Protect Witnesses in Gujarat, Conduct Investigations," New York, April 14, 2004, http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/04/13/india8429.html. Also Human Rights Watch, We Have No Orders to Save You, April 2002, pp. 21.
9 "Protect Key Witnesses In Gujarat Riots," The Indian Express. March 16 2004, http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=43064 (retrieved August 21, 2004).
2
Documentary filmmaker Shubhradeep Chakravorty was verbally abused and threatened in Ahmedabad after the screening of his film that questions the official version of events in the attack on the train in Godhra and criticizes the violence that followed. An earlier screening had to be canceled because the venue owners pulled out following threats.10 Several websites, claiming to support the cause of Hindus in India, list human rights campaigners as "traitors." For instance, the website of the Patriotic Sons of Mother India has listed several Gujarat activists, including many whose testimonies are listed in this report, as enemies of India. The website openly supports the BJP by including a list of twenty reasons one should not support Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Congress party. The lead entry says, "Shame Shame Indian Leftists! You want human rights for terrorists?" This kind of rhetoric could endanger the security of activists and spreads fear by providing the home address, phone numbers and/or email address of some of those it lists, calling them "anti-India, anti-Hindu activists."11
So many witnesses have complained of threats that in May 2003, the NHRC asked the Director General of Police in Gujarat for a report on measures taken "to protect the safety, physical and psychological well-being, dignity and privacy of victims and witnesses."12 The Director General offered a disingenuous response, saying that in the absence of any specific complaint, it would not be possible for the state police to accord protection to each and every witness or victim.13 However, when the police have known the identity of activists who have been threatened, they have a poor record of protecting them.14
Aside from prominent activists with connections to senior government or police officials, few activists, witnesses, or victims can rely on protection from state authorities. Even witnesses who have received 24-hour police protection have complained that guards turn up sporadically.15 Many Muslim witnesses initially refused to give testimony to the "Nanavati-Shah Commission"16 appointed by Chief Minister Modi because they
10 "Docu-maker Faces VHP Wrath," The Times of India, Oct.25, 2003, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-251072.htm (retrieved June 14, 2004).
11 See http://www.geocities.com/enemiesofbharat/
12 NHRC Proceedings, Case No. 1150/6/2001-2002, June 16, 2002. http://nhrc.nic.in/gujarat_order_2001-2002.html (retrieved August 13, 2004).
13Ibid.
14 See Section III below, "Threats against Teesta Setalvad and Father Cedric Prakash."
15 Praveena Sharma, "Cowering Muslim Witnesses In Gujarat Wait In Vain For Police Protection," Agence France-Presse, September 14, 2003, http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/dp/Qindia-gujarat-muslims.RqcI_DSF.html (retrieved June 21, 2004).
16 A Commission of Enquiry was set up by Gujarat’s Narendra Modi government to examine the Godhra incident and the violence against Muslims that followed. The Commission is led by two retired judges, Justice G.T. Nanavati and Justice K.G.Shah. Activists have been concerned about the impartiality of this commission because of a statement by Justice Nanavati exonerating the state government and the local police, although he later retracted the statement. While many activists have questioned the credentials of the judicial commission,
3
feared reprisal from local police and Hindu extremists.17 The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) said that witnesses had no faith in the proceedings because it was "carried out in an atmosphere hostile to victims."18 Protection offered by the Gujarat government has been refused by some witnesses because the local police were perceived as complicit and more likely to harm than protect the witness. Witnesses have repeatedly expressed fear of the Gujarat police, fear so great that in one case, witnesses, offered protection by local police, submitted their refusal in writing to the Police Inspector.19
lawyers working on behalf of human rights organizations and victims have also used the commission to cross-examine senior government officials, often forcing them to admit that there were serious lapses by the state administration in containing the violence. In an effort to prevent another commission from being set up by New Delhi after a Congress-led government replaced the earlier BJP-led coalition, on July 21, 2004, Chief Minister Modi extended the terms of reference of the Nanavati-Shah Commission to also examine the role and conduct of the chief minister, ministers, government officers, other individuals and organizations. See Anosh Malekar, "Another Twist in the Plot," The Week, August 8, 2004, http://www.the-week.com/24aug08/statescan_article3.html and Asghar Ali Engineer, "No Justice Nanavati, What You Say Is Not Correct," June 6, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/guj-engineer060603.htm (retrieved June 21, 2004).
Statements from leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP),20 alleged by many of planning and executing the attacks on Gujarati Muslims in 2002, have added to the distrust. On July 3, 2004, two years after the riots, despite severe criticism from human rights organizations and constitutional authorities like the NHRC, VHP Working President Ashok Singhal declared that, "What happened in Gujarat after the Godhra carnage had the blessing of Lord Rama."21
Realities on the ground in Gujarat have fueled the fears of activists, particularly Muslims.22 Muslims are often treated as suspected terrorists and were arrested under the recently-repealed draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). Of the 287 cases
17 Digant Oza and Nachiketa Desai, "Nanavati Commission Boycott," Sahara Time, August 3, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/guj-desai030803.html (retrieved June 21, 2004).
18 "PUCL-Vadodara Shanti Abhiyan Withdraw from the Nanvati-Shah Commission Hearings,".June 18, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/gujarat-pucl180603.htm (retrieved August 24, 2004).
19 See Section III, "Threat and Harassment of Bilkis Yakub Rasool."
20 The VHP was formed in 1964 to address the social aspects of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activities and to communicate the RSS message to Hindus living outside India. Its most publicized activity is the campaign to build a temple for the Hindu god Ram at the site of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, which they claim was built on the site of an earlier Hindu temple that marked the birthplace of Lord Ram. On Dec. 6, 1992, the mosque was demolished by Hindu extremists during a meeting organized by the VHP. The Hindus killed in Godhra on Feb 27, 2002, were returning to Gujarat after participating in temple building rituals organized by the VHP in Ayodhya.
21 "Singhal Justifies Gujarat Riots," Press Trust of India, July 3, 2004. Lord Ram (also spelt Rama) is the warrior-king from the Hindu epic Ramayana.
22 "Harrassment Of People Engaged In Social and Human Rights Work In Gujarat," PUCL Bulletin, March 2003 http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Religion-communalism/2003/harrasment-gujarat.htm (retrieved June 21, 2004).
4
registered under POTA in Gujarat as of December 2003, 286 were against Muslims.23 Muslim leaders and activists fear that they too will be investigated under POTA.24 That fear was heightened, activists say, after police arrested Haris Ansari under POTA. He is the son of Shakeel Ahmed Ansari, a member of the Islamic Relief Committee working with Gujarat victims. Shakeel Ahmed described the situation:
"Police pick up youths, whoever they want, from streets, keep them on remand for weeks and months. All this has filled Muslim psyche with fear in Gujarat."25
Activists say that even now, almost three years after the riots, junior police officials in charge of local police stations are reluctant to record complaints by witnesses about threats and intimidation. According to activist Teesta Setalvad, who has received numerous threats for her work on the Gujarat violence, "In some cases when absconders have threatened witnesses, when the witnesses went to lodge an FIR (First Information Report), the police refused to register it. It needs an external push—we have to intervene personally and call senior officers in Gujarat or we have to send a lawyer along."26
More subtle means have also been used to obstruct justice. Instead of pursuing the perpetrators of the violence, who often committed their crimes in full view of large numbers of witnesses, state police authorities have summoned human rights activists for questioning. In many cases the questioning has been based on unsubstantiated protest letters sent to the BJP government by its own party workers.27
Tax authorities and the Gujarat charity commissioner have allegedly singled out human rights activists working on the riots for investigation. Local activists say that income tax investigations have been threatened against many organizations run by Muslims in an effort to put pressure on Muslim leaders to encourage witnesses to drop charges and withdraw from cases.
23 Zakia Jowher, "POTA and the Terrorized Minority in Gujarat." (unpublished report by Aman Samudaya in HRW’s possession).
24 See Section III, "Police Inquiries and Interrogation of Mukhtar Muhammad."
25 Quamar Ashraf, "Gujarat’s Structural Violence Continues Unabated," The Milli Gazette,May 16-31, 2004, http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2004/16-31May04-Print-Edition/1605200458.htm (retrieved June 21, 2004).
26 Human Rights Watch interview with Teesta Setalvad, activist, Citizens for Justice and Peace. Mumbai, August 21, 2004.
27 See Section III. "Testimony from Mukhtar Muhammad and Father Cedric Prakash."
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The Gujarat government appears to be abusing its law enforcement powers to deter local activists by tying them up in lengthy legal proceedings. If spurious charges are filed, it could take years for activists or witnesses to prove their innocence, meanwhile limiting their ability to participate in efforts at justice for the 2002 riots. While the government has every right to examine or audit voluntary agencies, the alacrity with which the Gujarat government has been pursuing such investigations is in stark contrast to its attempts to arrest and prosecute those accused of taking part in the riots and committing crimes as serious as rape and murder.
India’s Supreme Court and the NHRC have taken the lead in addressing the failure of justice in Gujarat and the continuing threats and intimidation of witnesses and activists. Each has pointedly criticized Gujarat’s failure to protect the rights of its residents.28 Mallika Sarabhai,29 who has suffered tremendous harassment by the Gujarat government, said recently:
"The Supreme Court has been my beacon of light…It is the only institution that has stood by people fighting intolerance and hatred and taken on the government."30
Recent crucial interventions by the Supreme Court, particularly in the Best Bakery case, have offered victims and their supporters new confidence to continue pressing for justice. In the Best Bakery case, the Supreme Court condemned Gujarat’s failure to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the 2002 violence.31 It ordered fresh investigations and specifically ordered the retrial outside Gujarat of individuals who had
28Supreme Court order on April 12, 2004, in Zahira Habibulla H. Sheikh and Another. Appellant v. State of Gujarat and Other Respondents. In different orders, the Supreme Court also instructed the central government to protect key witnesses and activists, directed the Gujarat government to set up a panel to assess the reopening of all riot cases that were closed and asked the Gujarat advocate general to consider challenging the acquittal of accused in about 200 riot cases. The NHRC took suo moto action on March 1, 2002, and issued notices to the Gujarat government to reply indicating the measures taken to prevent further escalation of the situation. (Case No: 11150/6/2001-2002) It has continued to issue notices and recommendations in this case. (See http://www.nhrc.nic.in/Gujarat.htm). The Commission also filed a Special Leave Petition seeking the transfer to key cases out of Gujarat on July 31, 2003. Ref. Special Leave Petition (Criminal) of 2003 in the matter of National Human Rights Commission (petitioner) v.State of Gujarat (respondents) in the Supreme Court of India Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction.
29 See testimony in Section III, "Harassment of Mallika Sarabhai."
30 Hindol Sengupta, "Mallika Sarabhai Celebrates Gujarat Judgement," Indo-Asian News Service, August 18, 2004.
31 Supreme Court order on April 12, 2004, in Zahira Habibulla H. Sheikh and Another v. State of Gujarat and Others. See text of judgment, "Best Bakery Case- the Supreme Court Order," The Indian Express, April 17, 2004, http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=45181 (retrieved June 21, 2004).
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been acquitted after a widely criticized trial in Gujarat of twenty-one persons for setting on fire and killing fourteen people at a bakery in Vadodara, Gujarat.
Amicus curiae Harish Salve, former solicitor general for the Indian government and a senior lawyer, had filed an application to the Supreme Court stating that of the 4,252 cases registered by the police, nearly 2,100 had been closed.32 On August 17, 2004, the Supreme Court directed the Gujarat state government to set up a panel of senior police officials to review cases where the local police had filed closure reports instead of charge-sheets and asked the Director General of Police to report the progress of the committee’s review every three months.33 The court has also asked for a re-examination of all acquittals in riot trials to determine possibilities for filing appeals.34
In the case of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel, the Supreme Court ordered a change of venue after accepting evidence of police bias in favor of the accused and the threatening of witnesses.35 The court was responding to Bilkis’ prayer for transfer of the trial outside Gujarat because justice was not possible in Gujarat in the prevailing political environment.
The Supreme Court’s orders have rewarded a persistent campaign on behalf of the victims of the Gujarat riots by activists, lawyers, and victims. However, apparently fearful of the consequences of this tough action, Gujarat officials and Hindu nationalists—many connected to the BJP—have stepped up their harassment and intimidation of witnesses, human rights activists, and lawyers in order to discourage them from continuing with their efforts at demanding accountability for the 2002 violence.
Victims have started fighting back. Zahira Sheikh, a witness in the Best Bakery case who had retracted previous testimony against the accused at trial, announced that she had recanted her statement after being intimidated by a local BJP leader, and called for a fresh trial. This has encouraged other witnesses to come forward, bolstered by the legal protection which activists and lawyers are providing, sometimes at great personal risk, under the umbrella of Supreme Court and National Human Rights Commission rulings. As one victim said:
32 "All Closed Riot Cases to be Reassessed by Police Panel," The Asian Age, August 18, 2004, p 1.
33 "2000 Buried Riot Cases get a New Life," The Indian Express, August 17, 2004 http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=53325 (retrieved August 18, 2004).
34 "Challenge Riot Case Acquittals: SC," The Times of India, August 14, 2004, pp. 9.
35 See Section III, "Threat and Harassment of Bilkis Yakub Rasool."
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This is not my struggle alone. It is our struggle, of those countless Muslim women raped and humiliated during the riots whose names and faces I do not even know but whose pain I can feel. I will carry on my fight to till the end and I am confident that other Muslim women faced with similar trauma will come forward and fight their cases.36
But individual courage alone will not allow fair trials to proceed. The cases set out below are illustrative of the problem of threats and intimidation faced by many victims, witnesses and activists, but most remain too afraid to tell their stories in public.
The new Congress Party-led coalition government in New Delhi has raised hopes among activists and victims because of its promise of secular governance and its commitment to "preserve, protect and promote social harmony and enforce the law without fear or favor to deal with all obscurantist and fundamentalist elements who seek to disturb social amity and peace."37 Now it needs to take strong action to ensure the investigation and prosecution of those guilty of committing crimes during the riots––and to identify and prosecute their sponsors.
To address the nature and scale of intimidation against victims, witnesses, activists, and lawyers, Human Rights Watch calls upon the new government in Delhi and the state government in Gujarat to:
1. Immediately take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of activists, lawyers, victims and witnesses who are fighting for justice in Gujarat and prevent retaliation by state agencies against witnesses, human rights activists and lawyers working on riot related cases
2. Ensure that a credible and effective witness protection program is created at the national level to protect victims, witnesses, and activists. Support and encourage the work of the Indian Law Commission on this subject. It is critical to note that physical protection alone is not enough to constitute witness security. In situations of mass violence, like in Gujarat, effective witness protection
36 Shramana Ganguly, "Bilkis: It’s Not My Struggle Alone, It’s Ours," The Asian Age, August 9, 2004. pp. 2.
37 United Progressive Alliance’s Common Minimum Program. The Congress-led coalition government has also begun work to draft a comprehensive law against communal violence. The Prevention of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity Act, 2004 is being drafted by jurists and human rights activists and may include provisions for investigations by a central agency, prosecution by special courts and uniform compensations to victims.
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programs have to include long-term sustained rehabilitation of survivors/witnesses to the violence
3. Order the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate all allegations of violence, intimidation, or witness tampering by officials of the Gujarat administration, local police, local nationalist organizations, and others. When such acts are found to have occurred, initiate prosecutions and take disciplinary action against offenders.
4. Initiate vigorous prosecutions in all cases related to the 2002 violence where there is sufficient evidence. Prosecute any civil servant, including police officers and prosecutors, who failed to fulfill their obligations towards Muslims or their representatives.
5. Ensure that tax investigations are not used as a political tool against witnesses and activists.
6. Take appropriate criminal or civil action against all individuals and organizations that incite violence.
7. Launch public awareness campaign in Gujarat and other states aimed at preventing future communal violence, including public service announcements condemning religious violence and extremism. Enact a comprehensive law against communal violence, as promised in the Common Minimum Program of the United Progressive Alliance and encourage each state to adopt that law.
8. Offer full support to the work of the NHRC and its Special Representative, including acting expeditiously on their recommendations.
II. Background
Large-scale communal violence in Gujarat began on February 27, 2002, when a train carrying Hindu activists was attacked in the town of Godhra. Local Muslim residents were blamed for the attack and nearly a hundred have been arrested.38 While the reasons for the onset of the violence are disputed-- a government inquiry has been instituted to investigate the incident-- a widely reported explanation is that an altercation broke out between some Hindu activists and a Muslim vendor at the Godhra station.39 It is
38 "Godhra Carnage Accused Arrested," Press Trust of India, September 2, 2004, http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/sep/02godhra.htm (retrieved September 4, 2004).
39 There are significantly divergent accounts about the events in Godhra. Hindu groups say it was a terrorist attack and charges filed against the accused say it was pre-planned conspiracy. Defense lawyers, however, claim that forensic reports show that a mob outside could not have set the carriage alight and want an
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unclear how it happened, but one carriage of the train caught fire and fifty-nine people were killed in the blaze.
independent investigation into what exactly happened to the Sabarmati Express. The Minister of Railways in the newly appointed Congress-led cabinet in New Delhi has ordered a fresh inquiry, which has been protested by the BJP.
In the days following the Godhra fire, the full fury of the state government and Hindu nationalism was turned on Muslims in Gujarat. Muslims were branded as terrorists by government officials and the local media creating the environment for armed gangs to seek vengeance in a five-day killing and looting spree. The government has charged many of the Muslims accused in the attack on the train under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), but filed ordinary criminal charges against those accused in the violence against Muslims. POTA limits the procedural rights of those arrested and makes them subject to substantially longer prison terms if convicted. (Accepting that the law is being misused, the new Congress-led coalition in New Delhi decided to repeal it.) Muslim homes, businesses, and places of worship were destroyed. Scores of women and girls were gang-raped and sexually mutilated; many were then burned to death. In the weeks that followed, spasms of retaliatory violence continued.
An April 2002 Human Rights Watch report, We Have No Orders to Save You: State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat, set out allegations that violence against Muslims was planned well in advance of Godhra and with extensive state and police participation and complicity.40 Groups involved in the anti-Muslim violence included the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, or VHP), the Bajrang Dal (the militant youth wing of the VHP),41 and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps, or RSS).42 These groups are all part of the sangh parivar, or "family" of Hindu nationalist groups. The BJP is the political wing of the sangh parivar. A follow-up report by Human Rights Watch, Compounding Injustice: The Government’s Failure to Redress Massacres in Gujarat, published in July 2003, concluded that the ringleaders of the riots were still at large.
40 Human Rights Watch, We have No Orders to Save You, April 2002, pp. 21.
41 The Bajrang Dal was formed in 1984 to mobilize youth for the Ayodhya temple campaign. Its activists are believed to be involved in many acts of violence, including a spate of attacks against the Christian community in India that began in 1998. See Human Rights Watch, Politics by Other Means: Attacks Against Christians in India, (New York: Human Rights Watch, September 1999).
42 The RSS was founded in 1925 with a mission to create a Hindu state. It promotes a militant form of Hindu nationalism and has inspired the creation of political, social, and educational wings, a family of organizations referred to collectively as the "sangh parivar." See Human Rights Watch We Have No Orders to Save You, April 2002, pp. 39.
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State police have reportedly continued to face pressure from Gujarat officials to avoid making arrests or to reduce the severity of the charges filed. In many instances, the police refused in their initial police reports to name perpetrators identified by victims. For instance, even after Bilkis Yakub Rasool had identified her rapists and named the men who killed members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter, those names were not recorded in the "first information report."43 The Supreme Court is presently hearing a petition from the National Human Rights Commission seeking the transfer of several cases to courts outside Gujarat because of the politically charged atmosphere in the state.44
Although, the Gujarat government, responding to international outrage, initially boasted of thousands of arrests following the attacks, most of those arrested were acquitted, released on bail with no further action taken, or simply let go. Special Representative P.J.G Nampoothiri reported to NHRC on May 28, 2002, that of the 16,245 persons (most of them Hindu) arrested for substantive offences during the riots, all but 2,100 had been bailed out by May 10, 2002.45 Even when cases reached trial in local Gujarat courts, Muslim victims faced biased prosecutors and judges, harassment, and intimidation.
The Best Bakery case became perhaps the most significant example of the failure of justice.46 Despite a wealth of evidence and the deaths of fourteen people in horrendous circumstances, a Gujarat state court acquitted twenty-one people accused of the killings after witnesses withdrew statements they had given to the police identifying the attackers. The case gained newfound significance when one of the witnesses, Zahira Sheikh, publicly disclosed that she was forced to change her testimony as a result of threats against her during the trial. Zahira stepped forward due to the support and protection of a small but dedicated community of lawyers and activists. Their work, and Zahira’s example, inspired several other witnesses to come forward and offer testimonies
43 "Bilkis Trial Has Modi Govt On Edge," The Times of India, August 11, 2002, pp. 6.
44Special Leave Petition (Criminal) of 2003 in the matter of National Human Rights Commission (petitioner) v. State of Gujarat and Others (respondents). Dionne Bunsha, in "Justice, Against All Odds," an article in Frontline (Vol: 20, Iss: 25), December 19, 2003 reported that, ‘After amicus curiae Salve described several incidents of "gross miscarriage of justice," the Supreme Court declared, "If this is the state of affairs, then we will transfer all cases outside the State."’ http://www.flonnet.com/fl2025/stories/20031219004003900.htm (retrieved August 21, 2004).
45 Special Leave Petition (Criminal) of 2003 in the matter of National Human Rights Commission (petitioner) v. State of Gujarat and Others (respondents).
46 The Best Bakery case was initially heard by a lower court (State v. Rajubhai Damirbhai Baria and others, Sessions Case No. 248 of 2002) that acquitted all the accused on June 27, 2003. An appeal filed by the Gujarat government in the High Court was rejected with the judge criticizing human rights activists and the NHRC. The Supreme Court disagreed and in a verdict on April 12, 2004, in Zahira Habibulla H. Sheikh and Another v. State of Gujarat and Others, it transferred the case out of Gujarat and ordered a retrial.
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in other riot cases. This led to a strong national response to the serious shortcomings of accountability in Gujarat. India’s National Human Rights Commission has strongly condemned the Gujarat government for its failure to deliver justice.47
The most important response came from the Indian Supreme Court in the Best Bakery case. Noting that at trial the prosecution acted more like the defense, the Court referred to members of the state administration as "modern day Neros,"48 saying that they "were looking elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent women and children were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be saved and protected."49 In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court overturned the acquittals in the Best Bakery case and ordered the case transferred to a more neutral venue in neighboring Maharashtra state. The Supreme Court rebuked both the Gujarat High Court and the local justice system, stating that the "Judicial criminal administration system must be kept clean and beyond the reach of whimsical political wills or agendas."50 The Supreme Court also directed the state governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra to give adequate protection to witnesses and victims, ordered the appointment of a new public prosecutor, and ordered fresh police investigations into the case. On August 17, 2004, while ordering a reassessment of all closed riot cases and asking the Gujarat state government for details of acquittals and appeals, the judges declared, "What had happened in the state was unprecedented and abnormal."51
III. Cases of Threats, Intimidation and Harassment of Victims, Witnesses, and Activists
Official Harassment
The state of Gujarat appears to have employed police investigations and enquiries by tax officials to intimidate activists working on behalf of those injured in the Gujarat riots. While the state government has the right to enforce criminal and tax laws, human rights activists claim that these kinds of investigations, on this scale, did not take place before the Supreme Court verdicts. They claim that the state has been selectively targeting
47 NHRC orders on Gujarat, Case No. 1150/6/2001-2002 on March 1, 2002 and again on April 1, 2002, after a visit to Gujarat by Chairperson, Justice J.S. Verma. The NHRC also filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court to set aside the judgment in the Best Bakery case and sought further investigations by an independent agency and a retrial in a competent court outside the state of Gujarat. http://nhrc.nic.in/disparchive.asp?fno.html (retrieved August 13, 2004).
48 The judges were referring to the Roman Emperor Nero reputed to have fiddled while Rome burned.
49 Zahira Habibulla H. Sheikh and Another. V. State of Gujarat and Others
50 Ibid.
51 "All Closed Riot Cases To Be Reassessed by Police Panel," The Asian Age, August 18, 2004, pp. 2.
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individuals and groups prominently working to ensure that the violence against Muslims in 2002 is addressed by the legal and judicial systems.
VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders have boasted in private to journalists that tying up activists in lengthy legal proceedings is an effective to way to teach a lesson to the "pseudo-secularists," the term Hindu nationalists use for those that oppose their militant agenda. They offer the example of Tehelka, a private web-based investigative journal that had used hidden cameras to film senior politicians and officials accepting bribes in a fake defense deal. Instead of punishing those caught taking bribes, the then BJP-led government in New Delhi set up a commission of inquiry where Tehelka became the de facto defendant—forced to prove the authenticity of its reportage. The VHP leaders say, with some satisfaction, that Tehelka was forced to close down because its editors were busy with court hearings and investors were too wary to put in more funds. (Although the investigation is still going on, Tehelka was later revived with the help of supporters and allies.)52
1. Threats and harassment of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel
During the 2002 riots, Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel and her family fled from their village when it was attacked by a Hindu mob. They were later tracked down. The women were raped and killed. Bilkis, who was pregnant at the time, was gang-raped. Her three and a half year old daughter was snatched from her arms, and killed by being smashed to the ground. Bilkis survived only because the attackers presumed her to be dead. The Gujarat police made little attempt to prosecute the known perpetrators and closed the case. When Bilkis first went to the local police station on the following day, after she had come out of hiding, to lodge a complaint naming men prominently associated with the local BJP unit as members of the mob, her evidence was not recorded by the police. The case was later closed by the Gujarat police as "true but undetected."53
However, when Bilkis appealed to the Supreme Court for an independent investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)54, the Gujarat government immediately ordered the local police to investigate the case again. But instead of trying to arrest those responsible, members of the Gujarat (CID) Crime Branch began harassing Bilkis and her family. Bilkis and other witnesses in the case repeatedly expressed fear of the
52 Private communications with journalist working for international media.
53 "Crime and Complicity," Frontline, June 4, 2004 http://www.flonnet.com/fl2111/stories/20040606003029700.htm (retrieved August 12, 2004).
54 CBI is a federal investigative agency that handles cases of corruption and cases of interstate and other crimes of national importance. CBI inquiries are often demanded in cases where local or state investigations are perceived to be biased.
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Gujarat police. Their fear was so great that when the Gujarat government attempted to force witnesses to accept protection from the local police, they submitted their refusal in writing to the Police Inspector. Bilkis also complained to the Indian Supreme Court about harassment by Gujarat CID. On September 25, 2003, the Supreme Court took the highly unusual step of ordering the state police to stop all investigations in the case––thereby accepting the validity of Bilkis’ complaint––until its final ruling.
The CBI discovered a deliberate attempt by some Gujarat policemen and officials to cover up evidence in this case.55 The CBI filed charges against twenty people, including six policemen and two government doctors accused of tampering with evidence to shield the offenders. The CBI charge-sheet filed in April 2004 says that the local police, when lodging the initial complaint, "suppressed material facts and wrote a distorted and truncated version," then claimed that the accused were unknown even though Bilkis had named them. It also alleged that they had caused the disappearance of evidence to protect the offenders.56
In an affidavit supporting Bilkis’ plea to shift the trial out of Gujarat, the CBI wrote that, "It is apprehended that the witnesses might be threatened and harm could be caused to them after filing of the charge sheet and during the trial."57 In fact, even the CBI has faced threats. In April, CBI investigating officer K.N. Sinha submitted an affidavit saying that he had been threatened by some of the accused when, on the court’s directives, he had gone to photograph them in jail.58
On August 6, 2004, based on the report from the CBI which made it clear that the state administration could not be trusted to handle this case fairly, the Supreme Court ordered a change of venue from Gujarat to neighboring Maharashtra state.59
2. Police Inquiries and Interrogation of Mukhtar Muhammed, Kasimabad Education and Development Society
A Muslim businessman who had not been engaged in political activity prior to the 2002 riots, Mukhtar Muhammed and his family barely survived by running away from a mob around his home and going into hiding. Several other Muslims in his neighborhood
55 "CBI backs Bilkis plea for trial outside Gujarat," Press Trust of India, July 23, 2004.
56 "Crime and Complicity," Frontline, June 4, 2004 http://www.flonnet.com/fl2111/stories/20040606003029700.htm (retrieved August 12, 2004).
57‘"CBI Backs Bilkis Plea for Trial Outside Gujarat," Press Trust of India, July 23, 2004
58 "CBI Official Says Bilkis Accused Threatened Him," Press Trust of India, April 27, 2004.
59 See further discussion in Section B, "Intimidation of Bilkis Yakub Rasool and other witnesses."
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were not as fortunate and were injured or killed. After the violence, Muhhamed began a program to rescue Muslims isolated in villages still under threat of attacks. With the permission of local officials, he helped organize a relief camp for 3,500 people displaced by the violence.
In 2003, Muhammed began working with human rights activists, officials and lawyers to reopen cases that had been closed due to negligent or intentionally inadequate police investigations and reports. Muhammed helped produce affidavits from witnesses that led to a reinvestigation of many cases. As a result, lawyers believe there are now at least eleven cases in which they have statements strong enough to win convictions. Muhammed himself is a witness in some of these cases.
According to Muhammed, the success of his work with Muslim victims resulted in a series of threats from local BJP leaders and those accused in the cases that he has worked on. Through friends, he was also told that the families of the accused were willing to reward him if he stopped working with witnesses. Muhammed filed a complaint with the NHRC’s Special Representative in Gujarat, alleging that he was being threatened by "influential, dominant and powerful people including politicians and ministers."60 He continues to work in villages where he has been directly threatened or received offers of a bribe. Muhammed suspects that some of the accused against whom he is gathering evidence have influential connections in the state administration. He fears they might deliberately be trying to discredit him by charging him with terrorism.
Muhammed told Human Rights Watch:
They even started sending threats through Muslim leaders. When that did not work, they decided to tie me down in some legal or criminal case.61
Muhammed says that when it became apparent that he was ignoring suggestions from Muslim leaders––who often choose to collaborate with state authorities to secure their own safety––to give up his work on riot cases, he was named as a terrorist by BJP supporters, as well as a local newspaper called Sandesh, which often attacks Muslims on its pages. In January and February 2004, investigators from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) visited Muhammed’s home and office. He was also summoned to
60 Ritu Sarin, "Witnesses, Probe Teams Under Threat: NHRC Pointman," The Indian Express, February 26, 2004, http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=41866 (retrieved August 12, 2004).
61 Human Rights Watch interview with Mukhtar Muhammed, activist, Kalol, June 30, 2004.
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the CID office for interrogation. The investigating officials told him that he was a suspect in a bombing attack that occurred after the riots. They eventually dropped the investigation because Muhammed was able to prove that he was at a rehabilitation camp office on the day of the explosion.
In May 2004, another investigation was started against him. According to Muhammed:
The police said they had received orders from the Home Ministry based on a three-page complaint signed by fifteen or sixteen Bharatiya Janata Party leaders who said I was the mastermind in all the incidents after the Gujarat riots including bomb blasts and the attack in Akshardham.62 The police told me that they had already done their inquiry and asked me to reply to their questions. They covered minute details of my life. 63
Muhammed told the police that he had already been investigated and cleared. But he was told that since there had been complaints about him, he had to be questioned again. Muhammed says the questioning was aggressive and that the police were trying to trap him over inconsistencies about trivial facts, such as details of his whereabouts many months prior to the questioning. Muhammed believes that the police persisted in their investigations only because the complaints came from leaders of the political party in power in Gujarat. He also believes that the same people who lodged the complaints also act as protectors of those accused in riot cases. According to Muhammed, they are local level BJP or VHP leaders. As a Muslim in Gujarat, Muhammad told Human Rights Watch that he fears that he may some day be arrested under POTA as punishment for trying to bring the guilty to justice.
Even without a successful prosecution, these complaints may have served their purpose. For more than a year they have embroiled Muhammed in legal proceedings and disrupted his personal and professional life, leaving him with less time and energy to work on behalf of riot victims. According to Muhammed, as of August 2004, the police investigations were still continuing.
62 On September 24, 2004, two men attacked unarmed worshipers at the Akshardham Temple in Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat. At least twenty-eight people were killed and scores injured as attackers tossed grenades and opened fire with assault rifles. Indian security agencies claimed that the attack on the temple was planned by Pakistan-based militant groups with the support of some Gujarati Muslims to avenge the killings of Muslims during riots earlier in the year. Several Muslim groups joined other secular organizations in condemning the attack.
63 Human Rights Watch interview with Mukhtar Muhammed, activist, Kalol, June 30, 2004
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The NHRC’s Special Representative, P.G.J. Nampoothiri, has cited Muhammed in his reports on Gujarat. Muhammed, he noted, had received threats because he had supplied information to a Gujarat government official, Neerja Gortu, who was investigating police failure to register riot cases. Nampoothiri told the NHRC that individuals who provided information to Gortu, including Mukhtar Muhammed, had already received threats and that he feared the activists might face "legal action and/or physical assault."
In his complaint to the NHRC, Special Representative Nampoothiri, stated that:
Influential leaders…apprehending arrests and prosecution of their henchmen, have made representations to the government seeking action against those who helped Ms. Neerja’s team in identifying victims/witnesses.
3. Police Enquiries and Interrogation of Father Cedric Prakash, Director, Prashant, A Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace
Father Cedric Prakash was a leader in providing relief and rehabilitation to riot victims in 2002 through Prashant, a nongovernmental organization. He has frequently spoken at national and international gatherings about the riots, talking about the involvement of BJP supporters in instigating the violence and the failure of the criminal justice system and the state judiciary in riot related cases.
On April 26, 2004, an inspector from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Crime Branch came to interrogate Prakash in his office in Ahmedabad. The officer arrived at 9:30 p.m. and informed Prakash that the he was acting on the directives of Hashmukh Adhia, the principal secretary at Chief Minister Modi’s office. According to the inspector, the inquiry was based on an e-mail sent by Vishal Sharma, a well-known supporter of Chief Minister Modi, to the government of Gujarat, demanding that Prakash’s passport be impounded for his alleged anti-national activities. Although no formal charges were brought against him, according to Prakash, he was told that he was being investigated based on the e-mail, which referred to Prakash’s claims at international meetings that Hindu extremists were responsible for the riots, and for an interview he had supposedly given to a magazine, Milli Gazette, about his visits to prisoners detained under POTA at Sabarmati Jail and his opinion that these detainees were innocent.
Prakash responded in writing to these charges that same evening, saying that he visited the Sabarmati Jail as a social worker and did not specifically meet prisoners held under
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POTA. He also denied speaking to Milli Gazette, the magazine that Sharma had cited. "I serve people without any discrimination of religion," Fr. Prakash wrote in his statement. "The sender of the e-mail wants to stop me working with people and is trying to malign my image."64
On June 8, 2004, Prakash was visited again by the same detective, who asked for another statement because the government needed further clarification regarding his work. He was served a summons and asked to appear before the Crime Branch on June 10, 2004. He complied and was interrogated for about one-and-half hours in the presence of his lawyer. He was asked again about the prisoners he had met in the Sabarmati Jail, what they discussed and how many times he had visited them. As Prakash told Human Rights Watch:
It was clear intimidation to see if I would crack down and admit something so that they could link me to some kind of terrorist activity.65
According to Prakash, the investigation continues. His nongovernmental organization, Prashant, has also been questioned by the Charity Commissioner’s office. Prakash has filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission.
Human Rights Watch is concerned that the investigation into Prakash’s statements may interfere with his right to freedom of expression under international law and may be intended, as in the cases below, to have a chilling effect not only on Prakash but other activists in Gujarat.
4. Inquiries by the Charity Commissioner of Ahmedabad against human rights activists
On June 1, 2004, several human rights and civic society organizations working on behalf of the victims of the Gujarat riots framed a charter of demands to the newly elected government in New Delhi. Among other things, the charter called for an independent re-examination of all closed cases, cases of acquittal, and cases in which bail had been granted, and for monitoring of ongoing investigations and trials. It also called for a special judicial commission to inquire into the Godhra incident. The activists called for the prosecution of all government and police officers that failed in their duty to prevent
64 Written statement by Father Cedric Prakash to the Police Inspector, Crime Cell, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, April 26, 2004.
65 Human Rights Watch interview with Father Cedric Prakash, activist, Ahmedabad, August 19, 2004.
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and control the violence and asked for legal measures to enable the prosecution of the Chief Minister and his cabinet for planning, instigating, and abetting the violence and failing to perform their duties to provide relief and rehabilitation to the victims.
Soon after the charter was released, the Charity Commissioner of Ahmedabad, an arm of the state government of Gujarat, began sending inspectors to the Gujarat-based NGOs that had signed the petition. Staff members were questioned about their work, the object of their trust, and the names and addresses of their trustees.
According to Digant Oza, whose Satyajeet Trust is one of the NGOs investigated by the Charity Commissioner:
They asked for basic information like the names of the members of the trust and our objectives. They demanded all the information in writing—immediately. I don’t understand how these things can go on. Their purpose is clear. They are trying to find something on us, some activity that they can object to or some member who is not registered. They are looking for a technical fault to catch us. These investigations are still going on.66
Activist Teesta Setalvad asks some simple questions:
If they are investigating charity organizations, why are they also not investigating the RSS groups? Why are they only selectively looking at groups that working for the victims of Godhra and the riots that followed?67
While the government has the responsibility to ensure that NGOs comply with Indian law, the timing and the fact that these groups were working on riot-related cases suggests a deliberate attempt at harassment and intimidation.68 Many NGO officials told Human Rights Watch that they had never faced this kind of investigation before they started their work on riot cases. The offices of an NGO called Aman Samudaya, for instance,
66 Human Rights Watch interview with Digant Oza, journalist and activist, Ahmedabad, June 20, 2004.
67 Human Rights Watch interview with Teesta Setalvad, Mumbai, August 13, 2004.
68 See Hotline Asia Urgent Appeals, "Stop Harassment of Activists in Gujarat," http://www.acpp.org/uappeals/2004/040621s2.html.
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have not only had visits by the Charity Commissioner’s inspectors, but also from the intelligence bureau.69
On June 10, 2004, Father Cedric Prakash wrote to the National Human Rights Commission on behalf of all the NGOs and activists that had signed the charter of demands and were since questioned by the Charity Commissioner’s office: "Whilst we definitely agree that some this might be within the purview of law and within the mandate of the Police or the Charity Commissioner, the nature of the questions and obviously the attitude, clearly amounts to intimidation, harassment and brow-beating," and petitioned the NHRC to intervene immediately and "direct the state government and its institutions to stop intimidating and harassing innocent citizens and to insist that the state ensures the human rights of every single individual."70
5. Harrassment of Mallika Sarabhai, Darpana Academy of Performing Arts
Mallika Sarabhai runs one of India’s best-known performing arts institutions, the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, in Ahmedabad. Mallika Sarabhai and her academy have been targeted by state authorities ever since she filed a public-interest petition in the Indian Supreme Court calling for the protection of the rights of those injured in the Gujarat riots and a thorough investigation into and punishment of those responsible.71 Manushi Shah, a former member of Darpana filed a complaint alleging that Sarabhai had reneged on a promise to get the student a visa to the U.S. despite making a promise to do so when she enrolled in the dance program. Although Shah said that Darpana had refunded her fees and returned her passport once her visa application for the tour was rejected, she accused Sarabhai of denying her a "brilliant career in the US." "In effect," says Sarabhai, "she has accused me of not letting her immigrate illegally."72
A criminal case of fraud and intention to cheat was, however, filed by state prosecutors in Ahmedabad. A court then ordered her travel outside Gujarat restricted, saying that she would have to seek court permission before leaving Ahmedabad. The hearings for permission are constantly delayed, Sarabhai complained, leaving organizers on tenterhooks, and several corporate sponsors pulled out rather than risk a last-minute cancellation. In February 20, 2004, the Supreme Court asked the Gujarat government to
69 Human Rights Watch interview with Zakia Jowher of Aman Samudaya, Ahmedabad, June 19, 2004.
70 Letter from Father Cedric Prakash, Director, Prashant, A Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace to Justice A.S. Anand, Chairperson, National Human Rights Commission, June 10, 2004.
71 Public interest litigations can be filed by individuals or civil rights groups before the Supreme Court to take up matters of national interest.
72 Hindol Sengupta, "Mallika Sarabhai Celebrates Gujarat Judgement," Indo-Asian News Service, August 18, 2004.
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lift all restrictions imposed on Sarabhai, observing: "She is not a criminal. There has to be some fairness in the prosecution of persons."73
Sarabhai claims that the charges were made with malicious intent in a clear case of harassment and intimidation. She points out that her mother and then she have been running the school for fifty-six years, they have toured over ninety countries with hundreds of dancers and such charges have never been made before.74 Sarabhai see this as a conspiracy to get her to withdraw her public interest petition against the Gujarat government for its role in the riots, particularly because she later discovered that Shah’s parents were members of the RSS. Sarabhai has also been listed on the website of the Patriotic Sons of Mother India as a "human trafficker."
Sarabhai told Human Rights Watch:
My appeal for a dismissal of the criminal case against me will come up for its final hearing in the Supreme Court next month, where I have filed for it to be thrown out. It is significant though, that the same government that chose to close over 2,000 riot cases and delayed many others including many of brutal rape and murder for want of trained public prosecutors, has been so diligent in appointing their two senior-most prosecutors in my case where my only so-called crime is that I did not help a woman to illegally immigrate to the United States."75
The National Human Rights Commission asked the state government to look into these charges, citing a number of organizations and individuals who spoke in Sarabhai’s favor.
Mallika Sarabhai also told Human Rights Watch that since November 2003, she and her family have faced inquiries from the Income Tax department and the Charity Commissioner. Sarabhai suspects that these inquiries have been instigated the state government, particularly because the investigations started just as her public interest litigation on the Gujarat riots was due to be taken up by the Supreme Court. Earlier, she had received anonymous calls asking her to retract her petition. Sarabhai says she has heard from friends within the administration that there was a lot of pressure to "fix" her.76 Sarabhai is still out on bail which has to be extended every three months. According to Sarabhai:
73 "Court Removes curbs on Mallika Sarabhai," The Times of India, February 20, 2004, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/507336.cms (retrieved August 25, 2004).
74 Human Rights Interview with Mallika Sarabhai, Ahmedabad, August 25, 2004.
75 Ibid.
76 Mallika Sarabhai, private letter to friends and supporters, January 4, 2004.
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Darpana and I have been harassed and threatened continuously, amongst other things to try and cow me down into withdrawing my public interest litigation in the Supreme Court and to stop me talking at a variety of fora about the continuing boycott of the Muslims, the continuing lack of justice and other issues.77
Anonymous and Individual Threats and Intimidation
Witnesses, human rights workers, and lawyers fighting for justice in Gujarat have been subjected to threats and intimidation by extremist groups or anonymously, through phone calls or word of mouth. For example, Haroon Rashid Abdul Sattar Mansoori, a key witness in a riot case, said that he was stopped near a gas station on July 15, 2004, and threatened by some of the accused, including one man who was arrested and later released on bail.78 Another witness, Ali Hasan, a laborer, claimed that he was arrested and framed in a murder trial after being summoned to the police station ostensibly to record a statement about the murder of three persons during the riots on February 28, 2002.79
In an atmosphere of official hostility towards those supporting Muslim victims of the riots, the many acts of private intimidation and threats take on a more ominous character. They raise questions about the political will in Gujarat to provide adequate protection for those seeking justice.
Some police officers, particularly at the junior levels, are open about their support for extremist Hindu nationalist ideology. In fact, urging that critical cases be entrusted to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the NHRC has noted that, "It is the central principle in the administration of criminal justice that those against whom allegations are made should not themselves be entrusted with the investigation of those allegations."80 In some cases when witnesses have approached local police stations to lodge complaints about intimidation, policemen have refused to register their report until activists asked senior officials to intervene.81 In other cases, complaints were lodged, but the police took no action to investigate or prosecute those responsible.
77 HRW interview with Mallika Sarabhai, Ahmedabad, July 8, 2004.
78 Abhishek Kapoor, "Riots: Kalol Witness Faces Threats," The Indian Express, August 10, 2004, pp. 4.
79 Anand Biria, "Witness To Riot Framed For Silence," The Asian Age, August 21, 2004, pp. 1.
80 Special leave Petition, 2003, NHRC v. State of Gujarat and Others.
81 See Section I, Teesta Setalvad’s testimony.
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In June 2003, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, in a statement to the Nanavati-Shah Commission, complained that witnesses had no faith in an investigation that was being carried out "by a police force accused of grave lapses and misdemeanor during the violence," and said that "human rights defenders, social workers and lawyers of the minority community fighting cases for justice have all been threatened and face a serious threat to their lives."82
Many working for justice in Gujarat believe they live in an atmosphere in which members of extremist groups can threaten and attack activists with impunity. Activists live in constant fear because if there is a planned assault by these groups, there is little evidence that the police would act forcefully to prevent an attack. They cite the example of Ehsan Jafri, who did not get aid from the local police during the riots, though he called senior officers several times. He, and several others who had sought shelter with him, were killed. "There is fear because we have seen during the riots that the police can show up too late," says Father Prakash.83
1. Threats against activists and lawyers working on riot-related cases.
Rais Khan Azeezkhan Pathan is a local Muslim activist who has been encouraging witnesses to testify. He works closely with Suhel Tirmizi, a lawyer who has opposed bail applications of the accused. They have both collaborated on several riot cases with activist Teesta Setalvad. Each has received many threats. Each has ultimately received protection from the state government. Each has concluded that the protection offered was insufficient and then turned to central authorities for protection.
In June 2003, Rais Khan was threatened by a group of Hindu extremists as he escorted witnesses to an official inquiry into the riots. In November 2003, although he was with his police escort, Rais Khan received threats on his mobile phone. The male voice threatened to "finish him off," saying, "We are keeping track of you every minute."84 In April 2004, he again received a call on his mobile phone asking him to stop working on
82 "PUCL-Vadodara Shanti Abhiyan Withdraw from the Nanavati-Shah Commission Hearings" June 18, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/gujarat-pucl180603.htm (retrieved August 24, 2004).
83 Human Rights Watch interview with Father Cedric Prakash, Ahmedabad, August 19, 2004.
84 "Activist gets Threat Call in Viramgram," The Times of India, November 11, 2003, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articlesshow/msid-276726.htm (retrieved August 21, 2004).
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riot-related cases. The anonymous caller also made sexually abusive remarks about Teesta Setalvad.85
In April 2004 and again in June 2004, unidentified men claiming to be from Gujarat turned at Teesta Setalvad’s office-cum-home in Mumbai, demanding to see her. The guard at the gate refused to let them enter because they were aggressive and abusive.86 Setalvad has been among the most identifiable voices in the campaign for justice in Gujarat. Extremist supporters of the BJP and VHP have regularly called her ‘anti-national,’ as they did when they came to the Prashant office.87 Her name appears regularly as a ‘traitor’ on websites and chat rooms hosted by Hindu groups. She has also been viciously attacked in public speeches by VHP leaders, including by general secretary Praveen Togadia who said Setalvad should be prevented from entering Gujarat.88
Suhel Tirmizi says he faces opposition from some of his colleagues in the legal fraternity who support the extremist Hindu ideology. He has also received abusive anonymous phone calls asking him to stop his work, telling him that the caller knew where he and his family could be found. Other lawyers have received direct or indirect threats and warnings because they appeared on behalf of riot victims and told to withdraw from these cases. Lawyer-activist Huma Khan was threatened by the accused in court in Gujarat. Some other lawyers, who do not wish to be identified, have told Human Rights Watch that they have received warnings, in court, through anonymous phone calls, by email, or through others who are in touch with BJP/VHP supporters.
Tirmizi told Human Rights Watch:
Most lawyers in Gujarat are too scared to take up riot related cases. They feel isolated and do not want to face threats…I used to oppose bail applications of the accused, which is when I was identified and later threatened.89
In June 2004, after being told that the security provided by the local police was not effective, the Supreme Court directed the central government to provide security to
85 Human Rights Watch interview with Rais Khan Azeezkhan Pathan, activist, Ahmedabad, June 11, 2004.
86 Human Rights Watch Interview with Teesta Setalvad, Mumbai, August 13, 2004.
87 See testimony below. "Threats Against Teesta Setalvad and Father Cedric Prakash.
88 Digant Oza, "Who Cares For Supreme Court in Gandhi’s Gujarat?" Indiathinkersnet, April 17, 2004 http://www.countercurrents.org/gujarat-oza170404.htm (retrieved August 21, 2004).
89 HRW interview with Suhel Tirmizi, lawyer, Ahmedabad, on June 21, 2004.
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these three and the witnesses in their cases. Each believes that the local police were acting more as informers to help the government keep track of his or her movements and meetings than as a protector. Even with protection from New Delhi, they continue to receive threats via anonymous phone calls, threatening them for their work on the riot cases.
2. Threats against Trupti Shah and Rohit Prajapati, activists with People’s Union for Civil Liberties-Shanti Abhiyan
In 2002 Trupti Shah, a women’s rights activist, and her husband, Rohit Prajapati, who works with an environmental rights organization against industrial pollution, joined together with other volunteers to help riot victims. Together these groups formed a peace effort led by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in Vadodara city.
Both have since received constant threats from right wing extremist groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal, often in the guise of sympathetic warnings. Shah and Prajapati have lived in Vadodara for over twenty years and have friends who sympathize with the arguments of the Hindu groups. Shah and Prajapati have been told repeatedly by these friends that others, more closely connected with the Bajrang Dal, the state government or the VHP, have asked them to pass on warnings to the activists to stop their work. Shah told Human Rights Watch:
They are told things like, "Tell your Muslim-loving friends that many people are angry with them. They should be careful."90
They have also received threatening phone calls. According to Shah:
When we were working with riot victims, we were called anti-national, anti-social, anti-development and anti-Hindu by local members of the VHP and Bajrang Dal when they talked about us to the media or with our local Hindu friends… Attempts are made to threaten us by giving warnings to stop all our human rights and environmental activities. We are receiving phone calls where the caller remains unidentified. Recently a caller gave details of Rohit’s movements on a particular day and said that he is being followed closely. Other callers abused us and referred to our work with great hatred. Such phone calls have restricted our movements. We have stopped traveling alone at night and are forced to
90 Human Rights interview with Trupti Shah, activist, Vadodara, August 20, 2004.
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spend more money for safe travel. Many times we cannot use our own two-wheeler as we used to, and are forced to hire a car. We have been trying to judge the purpose and location of these callers but it is not easy for lone activists without proper resources.91
On October 5, 2003, the caller ID on their phone recorded a cell phone number. The caller had initially claimed to be from the crime branch, but his number was later traced to a private detective agency. A formal complaint was lodged with the police commissioner of Vadodara, but as of August 30, 2004, there had been no progress reported by the police in apprehending the caller.
3. Threats against Teesta Setalvad, Citizens for Justice and Peace, and Father Cedric Prakash, Director, Prashant, A Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace
On April 12, 2004, the same day that the Supreme Court ordered the retrial and change of venue of the Best Bakery case, two men forced their way into the offices of Prashant in Ahmedabad. They demanded to meet Teesta Setalvad, Convenor of the Citizens for Justice and Peace, a co-petitioner in the Best Bakery case, who happened to be on the premises for a meeting. One of the two men identified himself as "Dr. Atul."
Setalvad and some others present at Prashant for the meeting recognized the two men as Dr. Atul Vaidya and Bharat Teli, both of whom were among those accused in the so-called Gulbarg Society massacre during the 2002 riots, where at least sixty-five people, including Ehsan Jafri, a former member of India’s parliament, had been killed. Although named by witnesses as perpetrators, no charges have been filed against these two men. But an appeal for re-investigation of the Gulbarg Society massacre is pending with the Supreme Court and many of those indicted fear that they will be arrested. 92
Father Cedric Prakash, director of Prashant, immediately alerted some senior police friends about the visitors. When the two men realized that Prakash had summoned the police, they left the office, but not before hurling abuse at Prakash and Setalvad and threatening "their end." About an hour later these two men were still standing outside shouting threats, now joined by a group of about ten young men demanding to meet
91 Human Rights Watch interview with Trupti Shah, activist, Vadodara, August 15, 2004.
92 See Human Rights Watch report We Have No Orders to Save You, April 2002, pp. 18. Over 250 people had taken shelter on Feb 28, 2002 in the home of Ehsan Jafri, a former member of parliament. For seven hours, even as Jafri made countless phone calls to the police, the Chief Minister and the central home minister among others, a mob first stoned his housing complex where he lived and eventually attacked the Muslims sheltering there, killing people with swords or burning them alive. At least sixty-five people including Jafri were killed.
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Prakash and Setalvad and asking why the two of them were defaming Hindus. Police officers then arrived and so the group left after shouting more slogans.
According to Prakash, the police responded promptly because Prakash is an eminent citizen of Ahmedabad who has connections with senior police officers, and was able to contact the police commissioner directly. But, as many activists pointed out to Human Rights Watch, others are not so fortunate, and uncertain about what will happen if someday they need to rely on the police—the same, un-reformed force that for the most part simply stood by and watched as the 2002 riots unfolded and innocent, defenseless Muslims were slaughtered.
Prakash was later assured orally by friends in the police department that Dr. Vaidya and Bharat Teli had been warned, and would not attack him again. But no charges had been filed against these men as of August 30, 2004, even though Prakash had photographed them shouting outside the Prashant office and submitted the pictures to the police.
Setalvad, a prominent local activist and lawyer, has received many threats, but cannot rely on the local police to protect her. For that reason, she is now protected by security forces under the central government instead of the Gujarat police.
4. Attack on volunteers of Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD)
On April 11, 2004, about a dozen BJP and Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists attacked the volunteers of Youth Aman Karwan, a caravan for peace. They were in Vadodara as part of a countrywide tour organized by ANHAD to promote communal harmony. The thirty- member delegation, all between the ages of fourteen and twenty, was led by Shabnam Hashmi, head of ANHAD, who has been involved in lobbying for the rights of those injured in the Gujarat violence. The students were addressing press conferences and meeting youth groups all over India, covering forty cities, towns and villages in one month. According to Hashmi:
In Vadodara, during the press conferences, two journalists started heckling the students and calling them anti-national for maligning Gujarat. Then they raised slogans and left. When we came out of the hotel room, where the press conference was being held, approximately forty VHP goons immediately surrounded us, using extremely vulgar language and gestures, physically manhandling me, misbehaving with the girls, breaking our vehicles and looting material, beating up one
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participant called Manan and humiliating him. Two vehicles with students were taken to the police station for safety. Many of the children had spent agonizing hours in the police station and were unable to contact me as I was still surrounded by the goons and later struggling with the police to file a report at the spot of the incident93
This program was a well-publicized event and activists point out that the police should have been aware that extremists might choose to attack the group in the present circumstances where there is such a strong feeling of communal hatred in Gujarat. They say that the police failed to provide adequate security in this case. If the police were sufficiently interested in protecting Gujarat activists, an organized mob would not have been allowed to gather outside a hotel for a planned attack on peace activists. No charges had been filed in this case as of August 30, 2004, although there were several eyewitnesses to the attack.
5. Intimidation of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel and other witnesses
Because she pursued the prosecutions of the men who gang raped her and killed fourteen members of her family, Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel has received numerous threats and had to constantly relocate her residence.
On August 6, 2004, the trial of the accused became the second to be transferred out of Gujarat. It is the only case of sexual violence where charges have been filed. Despite the transfer of the case, activists fear that attempts to bribe or intimidate witnesses will continue unless they are given adequate protection. Just physical protection, they say, is not enough. Witnesses are vulnerable, activists point out, because the Gujarat government has failed to adequately support several displaced Muslims, many of them key witnesses, who live in resettlement colonies without electricity, water or medical facilities.94
Farah Naqvi was a member of several fact-finding missions to Gujarat that investigated gender-based crimes during the Gujarat riots. One team produced The Survivors Speak, the first report to document the scale and brutality of mass sexual violence against Muslim women during the riots.95 For the last two years, Naqvi, along with activist-
93 Human Rights Watch interview with Shabnam Hasmhi, activist, New Delhi, July 5, 2004.
94 Human Rights Watch interview with Farah Naqvi, activist, New Delhi, August 18, 2004. Also see Harsh Mander, "Gujarat’s Victims Completely Isolated," Times of India, November 23, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/gujarat-mander231103.htm (retrieved August 18, 2004).
95 The Survivors Speak was released on April 16, 2002. Two later reports, Survivors Speak Part II, and a report by the International Initiative for Justice, also focused on gender-based crimes during the riots.
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lawyer Huma Khan and Delhi-based women’s rights activist Malini Ghose, has been helping riot victims with rehabilitation and in their pursuit of justice. In particular, they have been working with Bilkis Yakub Rasool. According to Naqvi:
We have been forced to relocate Bilkis at least twenty times over the last two and a half years because of threats to her life and family. Threats have been received in various forms. One of these threats was made directly to Huma Khan when she was in Dahod court during one of the hearings. A man walked up to her and said: "You can take Bilkis wherever you want. How long will she hide? Eventually she will have to come here. Let our men be out on bail, then we will see where she hides from us." Khan complained to the Gujarat Director General of Police and copied her notice to the NHRC special rapporteur in Gujarat. There has been no action by the Gujarat police in this matter.96
Many of the witnesses in Bilkis’ case have also been threatened repeatedly, including during the re-investigation phase by the CBI. One witness made a representation directly to the CBI about threats and offers of money that he had received. His complaint has been included in the CBI investigations. Despite the fact that the trial has been shifted to Mumbai, the witnesses continue to reside in Gujarat in extremely vulnerable circumstances, in a resettlement colony, and continue to be under threat.
II. Background..............................................................................................................................9
III. Cases of Threats, Intimidation and Harassment of Victims, Witnesses, and Activists......................................................................................................................................................12
Official Harassment................................................................................................................12
1. Threats and harassment of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel.............................................13
2. Police Inquiries and Interrogation of Mukhtar Muhammed, Kasimabad Education and Development Society..............................................................................14
3. Police Enquiries and Interrogation of Father Cedric Prakash, Director, Prashant, A Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace.............................................................17
4. Inquiries by the Charity Commissioner of Ahmedabad against human rights activists...............................................................................................................................18
5. Harrassment of Mallika Sarabhai, Darpana Academy of Performing Arts...........20
Anonymous and Individual Threats and Intimidation......................................................22
1. Threats against activists and lawyers working on riot-related cases.......................23
2. Threats against Trupti Shah and Rohit Prajapati, activists with People’s Union for Civil Liberties-Shanti Abhiyan..........................................................................................25
3. Threats against Teesta Setalvad, Citizens for Justice and Peace, and Father Cedric Prakash, Director, Prashant, A Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace..........26
4. Attack on volunteers of Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD).....27
5. Intimidation of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel and other witnesses.............................28
I. Summary
The government of the Indian state of Gujarat continues to obstruct justice and prevent accountability for the perpetrators of violence committed during communal riots in 2002
that left as many as 2,000 Muslims dead.1 The riots occurred after some Muslims allegedly attacked a train carrying Hindu pilgrims and activists. One carriage caught fire and fifty-nine Hindus were killed in the blaze.2 In retaliation, Hindu extremist mobs, often with police participation and complicity, killed hundreds of Muslims and displaced thousands.3
The Gujarat state government, led by Chief Minister Narandra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), not only failed to take appropriate action to prevent the violence, but has since failed to properly investigate the crimes committed. It has consistently sought to impede successful prosecutions of those allegedly involved in the massacres, leading the Supreme Court and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to intervene on several occasions.4
Activists and witnesses pursuing accountability continue to be targeted by influential extremists in Gujarat. The highest levels of government in Gujarat have created an extremely hostile environment.5 Chief Minister Modi has called human rights workers "five-star activists and pseudo-secularists" who are trying to tarnish the image of his state.6 This has encouraged a climate of impunity, where perpetrators of the riots and those that took part in the violence feel they can threaten activists and witnesses to discourage them from pursuing justice, without a response from state authorities.
1 Unofficial, but widely accepted estimates, put the toll in the violence at over 2,000. The Gujarat government claims that there were 851 deaths during the riots, including those killed when police fired their guns in an attempt to contain the rioters. According to police testimony before the Nanavati-Shah commission enquiring into the Gujarat riots, nearly 100 rioters were killed by the police.
2 Testimony by government officials presented to the Gujarat state-appointed Nanavati-Shah Commission looking into the 2002 riots. July 6, 2002.
3 Human Rights Watch, We Have No Orders to Save You: State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat, (New York: Human Rights Watch, April 2002), pp. 21-25. Beginning on February 27, 2002, most of the killings took place in the first five days. Testimony by government officials presented to the Nanavati-Shah Commission looking into the riots says that 80.73 percent of the deaths took place in the first five days.
4 The National Human Rights Commission is an autonomous, statutory body created pursuant to the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993. The NHRC has the same powers as a civil court trying a suit, including summoning and enforcing attendance of witnesses and examining them under oath; compelling discovery and production of any document; receiving evidence on affidavits; requisitioning any public record or copy thereof from any court or office; and issuing commissions for the examination of witnesses or documents. Unlike the rulings of a civil court, however, the commission’s recommendations are not legally binding.
5 Based on meetings with witnesses, activists, and eminent personalities, the NHRC had recommended to the Gujarat government that critical cases be handed over to central government investigators to avoid ‘extraneous’ influences brought to bear on the police. According to NHRC, the Gujarat government refused, claiming that the state police was being discredited on the basis of "hostile propaganda."
6 Kalpana Sharma, "Remembering Gujarat," The Hindu, December 28, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/guj-sharma281203.html (retrieved Aug 20, 2004). As recently as August 2004, on the eve of India’s Independence Day, Modi accused activists of "lending strength to anti-national elements" and "weakening the nation by undermining social values."
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The Gujarat police have initiated very few criminal investigations and have been largely non-responsive in cases where activists have lodged complaints about threats or attacks. No credible witness protection program has been established by the state government, which seems more interested in protecting those responsible for the violence than witnesses and victims.7
In fact, given the active police participation in the 2002 riots, their failure to protect Muslims as they were attacked and killed in plain view, the lack of any admission of responsibility, or refusal to reform since, witnesses are reluctant to approach the Gujarat police for protection or trust them with information.8 Responding to a demand from witnesses for protection by national forces instead of state police, the Supreme Court on March 15, 2004, indicated its lack of trust of state authorities when it asked the national government to identify key witnesses in nine Gujarat riot cases and deploy central police or paramilitary forces to protect them.9
The climate of fear in Gujarat is so great that activists and witnesses are often reluctant to publicly discuss or even be privately interviewed about the threats they receive for fear of retribution from those who make the threats or their allies, including some in powerful positions in the state government or police.
In several recent incidents, Hindu nationalists have threatened activists and lawyers and even assaulted them. One activist-lawyer working on a case against individuals accused of gang rape and murder, was threatened when she was attending a hearing in court. Although she sent a complaint to the Gujarat Director General of Police, no action has been taken. In another incident, in broad daylight Hindu extremists stoned the vehicles of activists calling for communal harmony and beat up one of the activists.
7 Displaced witnesses and victims now live in clusters and are protected by just a few armed guards posted on the outskirts of squatter settlements. This does not ensure their safety if they go into the general community for errands or meetings, as they can be easily accosted with threats or offers of bribes. Witnesses are vulnerable, activists point out, because the Gujarat government has failed to adequately support several displaced Muslims, many of them key witnesses, who live in these resettlement colonies without electricity, water or medical facilities.
8 Human Rights Watch, "India: Protect Witnesses in Gujarat, Conduct Investigations," New York, April 14, 2004, http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/04/13/india8429.html. Also Human Rights Watch, We Have No Orders to Save You, April 2002, pp. 21.
9 "Protect Key Witnesses In Gujarat Riots," The Indian Express. March 16 2004, http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=43064 (retrieved August 21, 2004).
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Documentary filmmaker Shubhradeep Chakravorty was verbally abused and threatened in Ahmedabad after the screening of his film that questions the official version of events in the attack on the train in Godhra and criticizes the violence that followed. An earlier screening had to be canceled because the venue owners pulled out following threats.10 Several websites, claiming to support the cause of Hindus in India, list human rights campaigners as "traitors." For instance, the website of the Patriotic Sons of Mother India has listed several Gujarat activists, including many whose testimonies are listed in this report, as enemies of India. The website openly supports the BJP by including a list of twenty reasons one should not support Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Congress party. The lead entry says, "Shame Shame Indian Leftists! You want human rights for terrorists?" This kind of rhetoric could endanger the security of activists and spreads fear by providing the home address, phone numbers and/or email address of some of those it lists, calling them "anti-India, anti-Hindu activists."11
So many witnesses have complained of threats that in May 2003, the NHRC asked the Director General of Police in Gujarat for a report on measures taken "to protect the safety, physical and psychological well-being, dignity and privacy of victims and witnesses."12 The Director General offered a disingenuous response, saying that in the absence of any specific complaint, it would not be possible for the state police to accord protection to each and every witness or victim.13 However, when the police have known the identity of activists who have been threatened, they have a poor record of protecting them.14
Aside from prominent activists with connections to senior government or police officials, few activists, witnesses, or victims can rely on protection from state authorities. Even witnesses who have received 24-hour police protection have complained that guards turn up sporadically.15 Many Muslim witnesses initially refused to give testimony to the "Nanavati-Shah Commission"16 appointed by Chief Minister Modi because they
10 "Docu-maker Faces VHP Wrath," The Times of India, Oct.25, 2003, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-251072.htm (retrieved June 14, 2004).
11 See http://www.geocities.com/enemiesofbharat/
12 NHRC Proceedings, Case No. 1150/6/2001-2002, June 16, 2002. http://nhrc.nic.in/gujarat_order_2001-2002.html (retrieved August 13, 2004).
13Ibid.
14 See Section III below, "Threats against Teesta Setalvad and Father Cedric Prakash."
15 Praveena Sharma, "Cowering Muslim Witnesses In Gujarat Wait In Vain For Police Protection," Agence France-Presse, September 14, 2003, http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/dp/Qindia-gujarat-muslims.RqcI_DSF.html (retrieved June 21, 2004).
16 A Commission of Enquiry was set up by Gujarat’s Narendra Modi government to examine the Godhra incident and the violence against Muslims that followed. The Commission is led by two retired judges, Justice G.T. Nanavati and Justice K.G.Shah. Activists have been concerned about the impartiality of this commission because of a statement by Justice Nanavati exonerating the state government and the local police, although he later retracted the statement. While many activists have questioned the credentials of the judicial commission,
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feared reprisal from local police and Hindu extremists.17 The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) said that witnesses had no faith in the proceedings because it was "carried out in an atmosphere hostile to victims."18 Protection offered by the Gujarat government has been refused by some witnesses because the local police were perceived as complicit and more likely to harm than protect the witness. Witnesses have repeatedly expressed fear of the Gujarat police, fear so great that in one case, witnesses, offered protection by local police, submitted their refusal in writing to the Police Inspector.19
lawyers working on behalf of human rights organizations and victims have also used the commission to cross-examine senior government officials, often forcing them to admit that there were serious lapses by the state administration in containing the violence. In an effort to prevent another commission from being set up by New Delhi after a Congress-led government replaced the earlier BJP-led coalition, on July 21, 2004, Chief Minister Modi extended the terms of reference of the Nanavati-Shah Commission to also examine the role and conduct of the chief minister, ministers, government officers, other individuals and organizations. See Anosh Malekar, "Another Twist in the Plot," The Week, August 8, 2004, http://www.the-week.com/24aug08/statescan_article3.html and Asghar Ali Engineer, "No Justice Nanavati, What You Say Is Not Correct," June 6, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/guj-engineer060603.htm (retrieved June 21, 2004).
Statements from leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP),20 alleged by many of planning and executing the attacks on Gujarati Muslims in 2002, have added to the distrust. On July 3, 2004, two years after the riots, despite severe criticism from human rights organizations and constitutional authorities like the NHRC, VHP Working President Ashok Singhal declared that, "What happened in Gujarat after the Godhra carnage had the blessing of Lord Rama."21
Realities on the ground in Gujarat have fueled the fears of activists, particularly Muslims.22 Muslims are often treated as suspected terrorists and were arrested under the recently-repealed draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). Of the 287 cases
17 Digant Oza and Nachiketa Desai, "Nanavati Commission Boycott," Sahara Time, August 3, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/guj-desai030803.html (retrieved June 21, 2004).
18 "PUCL-Vadodara Shanti Abhiyan Withdraw from the Nanvati-Shah Commission Hearings,".June 18, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/gujarat-pucl180603.htm (retrieved August 24, 2004).
19 See Section III, "Threat and Harassment of Bilkis Yakub Rasool."
20 The VHP was formed in 1964 to address the social aspects of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activities and to communicate the RSS message to Hindus living outside India. Its most publicized activity is the campaign to build a temple for the Hindu god Ram at the site of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, which they claim was built on the site of an earlier Hindu temple that marked the birthplace of Lord Ram. On Dec. 6, 1992, the mosque was demolished by Hindu extremists during a meeting organized by the VHP. The Hindus killed in Godhra on Feb 27, 2002, were returning to Gujarat after participating in temple building rituals organized by the VHP in Ayodhya.
21 "Singhal Justifies Gujarat Riots," Press Trust of India, July 3, 2004. Lord Ram (also spelt Rama) is the warrior-king from the Hindu epic Ramayana.
22 "Harrassment Of People Engaged In Social and Human Rights Work In Gujarat," PUCL Bulletin, March 2003 http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Religion-communalism/2003/harrasment-gujarat.htm (retrieved June 21, 2004).
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registered under POTA in Gujarat as of December 2003, 286 were against Muslims.23 Muslim leaders and activists fear that they too will be investigated under POTA.24 That fear was heightened, activists say, after police arrested Haris Ansari under POTA. He is the son of Shakeel Ahmed Ansari, a member of the Islamic Relief Committee working with Gujarat victims. Shakeel Ahmed described the situation:
"Police pick up youths, whoever they want, from streets, keep them on remand for weeks and months. All this has filled Muslim psyche with fear in Gujarat."25
Activists say that even now, almost three years after the riots, junior police officials in charge of local police stations are reluctant to record complaints by witnesses about threats and intimidation. According to activist Teesta Setalvad, who has received numerous threats for her work on the Gujarat violence, "In some cases when absconders have threatened witnesses, when the witnesses went to lodge an FIR (First Information Report), the police refused to register it. It needs an external push—we have to intervene personally and call senior officers in Gujarat or we have to send a lawyer along."26
More subtle means have also been used to obstruct justice. Instead of pursuing the perpetrators of the violence, who often committed their crimes in full view of large numbers of witnesses, state police authorities have summoned human rights activists for questioning. In many cases the questioning has been based on unsubstantiated protest letters sent to the BJP government by its own party workers.27
Tax authorities and the Gujarat charity commissioner have allegedly singled out human rights activists working on the riots for investigation. Local activists say that income tax investigations have been threatened against many organizations run by Muslims in an effort to put pressure on Muslim leaders to encourage witnesses to drop charges and withdraw from cases.
23 Zakia Jowher, "POTA and the Terrorized Minority in Gujarat." (unpublished report by Aman Samudaya in HRW’s possession).
24 See Section III, "Police Inquiries and Interrogation of Mukhtar Muhammad."
25 Quamar Ashraf, "Gujarat’s Structural Violence Continues Unabated," The Milli Gazette,May 16-31, 2004, http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2004/16-31May04-Print-Edition/1605200458.htm (retrieved June 21, 2004).
26 Human Rights Watch interview with Teesta Setalvad, activist, Citizens for Justice and Peace. Mumbai, August 21, 2004.
27 See Section III. "Testimony from Mukhtar Muhammad and Father Cedric Prakash."
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The Gujarat government appears to be abusing its law enforcement powers to deter local activists by tying them up in lengthy legal proceedings. If spurious charges are filed, it could take years for activists or witnesses to prove their innocence, meanwhile limiting their ability to participate in efforts at justice for the 2002 riots. While the government has every right to examine or audit voluntary agencies, the alacrity with which the Gujarat government has been pursuing such investigations is in stark contrast to its attempts to arrest and prosecute those accused of taking part in the riots and committing crimes as serious as rape and murder.
India’s Supreme Court and the NHRC have taken the lead in addressing the failure of justice in Gujarat and the continuing threats and intimidation of witnesses and activists. Each has pointedly criticized Gujarat’s failure to protect the rights of its residents.28 Mallika Sarabhai,29 who has suffered tremendous harassment by the Gujarat government, said recently:
"The Supreme Court has been my beacon of light…It is the only institution that has stood by people fighting intolerance and hatred and taken on the government."30
Recent crucial interventions by the Supreme Court, particularly in the Best Bakery case, have offered victims and their supporters new confidence to continue pressing for justice. In the Best Bakery case, the Supreme Court condemned Gujarat’s failure to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the 2002 violence.31 It ordered fresh investigations and specifically ordered the retrial outside Gujarat of individuals who had
28Supreme Court order on April 12, 2004, in Zahira Habibulla H. Sheikh and Another. Appellant v. State of Gujarat and Other Respondents. In different orders, the Supreme Court also instructed the central government to protect key witnesses and activists, directed the Gujarat government to set up a panel to assess the reopening of all riot cases that were closed and asked the Gujarat advocate general to consider challenging the acquittal of accused in about 200 riot cases. The NHRC took suo moto action on March 1, 2002, and issued notices to the Gujarat government to reply indicating the measures taken to prevent further escalation of the situation. (Case No: 11150/6/2001-2002) It has continued to issue notices and recommendations in this case. (See http://www.nhrc.nic.in/Gujarat.htm). The Commission also filed a Special Leave Petition seeking the transfer to key cases out of Gujarat on July 31, 2003. Ref. Special Leave Petition (Criminal) of 2003 in the matter of National Human Rights Commission (petitioner) v.State of Gujarat (respondents) in the Supreme Court of India Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction.
29 See testimony in Section III, "Harassment of Mallika Sarabhai."
30 Hindol Sengupta, "Mallika Sarabhai Celebrates Gujarat Judgement," Indo-Asian News Service, August 18, 2004.
31 Supreme Court order on April 12, 2004, in Zahira Habibulla H. Sheikh and Another v. State of Gujarat and Others. See text of judgment, "Best Bakery Case- the Supreme Court Order," The Indian Express, April 17, 2004, http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=45181 (retrieved June 21, 2004).
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been acquitted after a widely criticized trial in Gujarat of twenty-one persons for setting on fire and killing fourteen people at a bakery in Vadodara, Gujarat.
Amicus curiae Harish Salve, former solicitor general for the Indian government and a senior lawyer, had filed an application to the Supreme Court stating that of the 4,252 cases registered by the police, nearly 2,100 had been closed.32 On August 17, 2004, the Supreme Court directed the Gujarat state government to set up a panel of senior police officials to review cases where the local police had filed closure reports instead of charge-sheets and asked the Director General of Police to report the progress of the committee’s review every three months.33 The court has also asked for a re-examination of all acquittals in riot trials to determine possibilities for filing appeals.34
In the case of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel, the Supreme Court ordered a change of venue after accepting evidence of police bias in favor of the accused and the threatening of witnesses.35 The court was responding to Bilkis’ prayer for transfer of the trial outside Gujarat because justice was not possible in Gujarat in the prevailing political environment.
The Supreme Court’s orders have rewarded a persistent campaign on behalf of the victims of the Gujarat riots by activists, lawyers, and victims. However, apparently fearful of the consequences of this tough action, Gujarat officials and Hindu nationalists—many connected to the BJP—have stepped up their harassment and intimidation of witnesses, human rights activists, and lawyers in order to discourage them from continuing with their efforts at demanding accountability for the 2002 violence.
Victims have started fighting back. Zahira Sheikh, a witness in the Best Bakery case who had retracted previous testimony against the accused at trial, announced that she had recanted her statement after being intimidated by a local BJP leader, and called for a fresh trial. This has encouraged other witnesses to come forward, bolstered by the legal protection which activists and lawyers are providing, sometimes at great personal risk, under the umbrella of Supreme Court and National Human Rights Commission rulings. As one victim said:
32 "All Closed Riot Cases to be Reassessed by Police Panel," The Asian Age, August 18, 2004, p 1.
33 "2000 Buried Riot Cases get a New Life," The Indian Express, August 17, 2004 http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=53325 (retrieved August 18, 2004).
34 "Challenge Riot Case Acquittals: SC," The Times of India, August 14, 2004, pp. 9.
35 See Section III, "Threat and Harassment of Bilkis Yakub Rasool."
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This is not my struggle alone. It is our struggle, of those countless Muslim women raped and humiliated during the riots whose names and faces I do not even know but whose pain I can feel. I will carry on my fight to till the end and I am confident that other Muslim women faced with similar trauma will come forward and fight their cases.36
But individual courage alone will not allow fair trials to proceed. The cases set out below are illustrative of the problem of threats and intimidation faced by many victims, witnesses and activists, but most remain too afraid to tell their stories in public.
The new Congress Party-led coalition government in New Delhi has raised hopes among activists and victims because of its promise of secular governance and its commitment to "preserve, protect and promote social harmony and enforce the law without fear or favor to deal with all obscurantist and fundamentalist elements who seek to disturb social amity and peace."37 Now it needs to take strong action to ensure the investigation and prosecution of those guilty of committing crimes during the riots––and to identify and prosecute their sponsors.
To address the nature and scale of intimidation against victims, witnesses, activists, and lawyers, Human Rights Watch calls upon the new government in Delhi and the state government in Gujarat to:
1. Immediately take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of activists, lawyers, victims and witnesses who are fighting for justice in Gujarat and prevent retaliation by state agencies against witnesses, human rights activists and lawyers working on riot related cases
2. Ensure that a credible and effective witness protection program is created at the national level to protect victims, witnesses, and activists. Support and encourage the work of the Indian Law Commission on this subject. It is critical to note that physical protection alone is not enough to constitute witness security. In situations of mass violence, like in Gujarat, effective witness protection
36 Shramana Ganguly, "Bilkis: It’s Not My Struggle Alone, It’s Ours," The Asian Age, August 9, 2004. pp. 2.
37 United Progressive Alliance’s Common Minimum Program. The Congress-led coalition government has also begun work to draft a comprehensive law against communal violence. The Prevention of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity Act, 2004 is being drafted by jurists and human rights activists and may include provisions for investigations by a central agency, prosecution by special courts and uniform compensations to victims.
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programs have to include long-term sustained rehabilitation of survivors/witnesses to the violence
3. Order the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate all allegations of violence, intimidation, or witness tampering by officials of the Gujarat administration, local police, local nationalist organizations, and others. When such acts are found to have occurred, initiate prosecutions and take disciplinary action against offenders.
4. Initiate vigorous prosecutions in all cases related to the 2002 violence where there is sufficient evidence. Prosecute any civil servant, including police officers and prosecutors, who failed to fulfill their obligations towards Muslims or their representatives.
5. Ensure that tax investigations are not used as a political tool against witnesses and activists.
6. Take appropriate criminal or civil action against all individuals and organizations that incite violence.
7. Launch public awareness campaign in Gujarat and other states aimed at preventing future communal violence, including public service announcements condemning religious violence and extremism. Enact a comprehensive law against communal violence, as promised in the Common Minimum Program of the United Progressive Alliance and encourage each state to adopt that law.
8. Offer full support to the work of the NHRC and its Special Representative, including acting expeditiously on their recommendations.
II. Background
Large-scale communal violence in Gujarat began on February 27, 2002, when a train carrying Hindu activists was attacked in the town of Godhra. Local Muslim residents were blamed for the attack and nearly a hundred have been arrested.38 While the reasons for the onset of the violence are disputed-- a government inquiry has been instituted to investigate the incident-- a widely reported explanation is that an altercation broke out between some Hindu activists and a Muslim vendor at the Godhra station.39 It is
38 "Godhra Carnage Accused Arrested," Press Trust of India, September 2, 2004, http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/sep/02godhra.htm (retrieved September 4, 2004).
39 There are significantly divergent accounts about the events in Godhra. Hindu groups say it was a terrorist attack and charges filed against the accused say it was pre-planned conspiracy. Defense lawyers, however, claim that forensic reports show that a mob outside could not have set the carriage alight and want an
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unclear how it happened, but one carriage of the train caught fire and fifty-nine people were killed in the blaze.
independent investigation into what exactly happened to the Sabarmati Express. The Minister of Railways in the newly appointed Congress-led cabinet in New Delhi has ordered a fresh inquiry, which has been protested by the BJP.
In the days following the Godhra fire, the full fury of the state government and Hindu nationalism was turned on Muslims in Gujarat. Muslims were branded as terrorists by government officials and the local media creating the environment for armed gangs to seek vengeance in a five-day killing and looting spree. The government has charged many of the Muslims accused in the attack on the train under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), but filed ordinary criminal charges against those accused in the violence against Muslims. POTA limits the procedural rights of those arrested and makes them subject to substantially longer prison terms if convicted. (Accepting that the law is being misused, the new Congress-led coalition in New Delhi decided to repeal it.) Muslim homes, businesses, and places of worship were destroyed. Scores of women and girls were gang-raped and sexually mutilated; many were then burned to death. In the weeks that followed, spasms of retaliatory violence continued.
An April 2002 Human Rights Watch report, We Have No Orders to Save You: State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat, set out allegations that violence against Muslims was planned well in advance of Godhra and with extensive state and police participation and complicity.40 Groups involved in the anti-Muslim violence included the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, or VHP), the Bajrang Dal (the militant youth wing of the VHP),41 and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps, or RSS).42 These groups are all part of the sangh parivar, or "family" of Hindu nationalist groups. The BJP is the political wing of the sangh parivar. A follow-up report by Human Rights Watch, Compounding Injustice: The Government’s Failure to Redress Massacres in Gujarat, published in July 2003, concluded that the ringleaders of the riots were still at large.
40 Human Rights Watch, We have No Orders to Save You, April 2002, pp. 21.
41 The Bajrang Dal was formed in 1984 to mobilize youth for the Ayodhya temple campaign. Its activists are believed to be involved in many acts of violence, including a spate of attacks against the Christian community in India that began in 1998. See Human Rights Watch, Politics by Other Means: Attacks Against Christians in India, (New York: Human Rights Watch, September 1999).
42 The RSS was founded in 1925 with a mission to create a Hindu state. It promotes a militant form of Hindu nationalism and has inspired the creation of political, social, and educational wings, a family of organizations referred to collectively as the "sangh parivar." See Human Rights Watch We Have No Orders to Save You, April 2002, pp. 39.
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State police have reportedly continued to face pressure from Gujarat officials to avoid making arrests or to reduce the severity of the charges filed. In many instances, the police refused in their initial police reports to name perpetrators identified by victims. For instance, even after Bilkis Yakub Rasool had identified her rapists and named the men who killed members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter, those names were not recorded in the "first information report."43 The Supreme Court is presently hearing a petition from the National Human Rights Commission seeking the transfer of several cases to courts outside Gujarat because of the politically charged atmosphere in the state.44
Although, the Gujarat government, responding to international outrage, initially boasted of thousands of arrests following the attacks, most of those arrested were acquitted, released on bail with no further action taken, or simply let go. Special Representative P.J.G Nampoothiri reported to NHRC on May 28, 2002, that of the 16,245 persons (most of them Hindu) arrested for substantive offences during the riots, all but 2,100 had been bailed out by May 10, 2002.45 Even when cases reached trial in local Gujarat courts, Muslim victims faced biased prosecutors and judges, harassment, and intimidation.
The Best Bakery case became perhaps the most significant example of the failure of justice.46 Despite a wealth of evidence and the deaths of fourteen people in horrendous circumstances, a Gujarat state court acquitted twenty-one people accused of the killings after witnesses withdrew statements they had given to the police identifying the attackers. The case gained newfound significance when one of the witnesses, Zahira Sheikh, publicly disclosed that she was forced to change her testimony as a result of threats against her during the trial. Zahira stepped forward due to the support and protection of a small but dedicated community of lawyers and activists. Their work, and Zahira’s example, inspired several other witnesses to come forward and offer testimonies
43 "Bilkis Trial Has Modi Govt On Edge," The Times of India, August 11, 2002, pp. 6.
44Special Leave Petition (Criminal) of 2003 in the matter of National Human Rights Commission (petitioner) v. State of Gujarat and Others (respondents). Dionne Bunsha, in "Justice, Against All Odds," an article in Frontline (Vol: 20, Iss: 25), December 19, 2003 reported that, ‘After amicus curiae Salve described several incidents of "gross miscarriage of justice," the Supreme Court declared, "If this is the state of affairs, then we will transfer all cases outside the State."’ http://www.flonnet.com/fl2025/stories/20031219004003900.htm (retrieved August 21, 2004).
45 Special Leave Petition (Criminal) of 2003 in the matter of National Human Rights Commission (petitioner) v. State of Gujarat and Others (respondents).
46 The Best Bakery case was initially heard by a lower court (State v. Rajubhai Damirbhai Baria and others, Sessions Case No. 248 of 2002) that acquitted all the accused on June 27, 2003. An appeal filed by the Gujarat government in the High Court was rejected with the judge criticizing human rights activists and the NHRC. The Supreme Court disagreed and in a verdict on April 12, 2004, in Zahira Habibulla H. Sheikh and Another v. State of Gujarat and Others, it transferred the case out of Gujarat and ordered a retrial.
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in other riot cases. This led to a strong national response to the serious shortcomings of accountability in Gujarat. India’s National Human Rights Commission has strongly condemned the Gujarat government for its failure to deliver justice.47
The most important response came from the Indian Supreme Court in the Best Bakery case. Noting that at trial the prosecution acted more like the defense, the Court referred to members of the state administration as "modern day Neros,"48 saying that they "were looking elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent women and children were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be saved and protected."49 In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court overturned the acquittals in the Best Bakery case and ordered the case transferred to a more neutral venue in neighboring Maharashtra state. The Supreme Court rebuked both the Gujarat High Court and the local justice system, stating that the "Judicial criminal administration system must be kept clean and beyond the reach of whimsical political wills or agendas."50 The Supreme Court also directed the state governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra to give adequate protection to witnesses and victims, ordered the appointment of a new public prosecutor, and ordered fresh police investigations into the case. On August 17, 2004, while ordering a reassessment of all closed riot cases and asking the Gujarat state government for details of acquittals and appeals, the judges declared, "What had happened in the state was unprecedented and abnormal."51
III. Cases of Threats, Intimidation and Harassment of Victims, Witnesses, and Activists
Official Harassment
The state of Gujarat appears to have employed police investigations and enquiries by tax officials to intimidate activists working on behalf of those injured in the Gujarat riots. While the state government has the right to enforce criminal and tax laws, human rights activists claim that these kinds of investigations, on this scale, did not take place before the Supreme Court verdicts. They claim that the state has been selectively targeting
47 NHRC orders on Gujarat, Case No. 1150/6/2001-2002 on March 1, 2002 and again on April 1, 2002, after a visit to Gujarat by Chairperson, Justice J.S. Verma. The NHRC also filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court to set aside the judgment in the Best Bakery case and sought further investigations by an independent agency and a retrial in a competent court outside the state of Gujarat. http://nhrc.nic.in/disparchive.asp?fno.html (retrieved August 13, 2004).
48 The judges were referring to the Roman Emperor Nero reputed to have fiddled while Rome burned.
49 Zahira Habibulla H. Sheikh and Another. V. State of Gujarat and Others
50 Ibid.
51 "All Closed Riot Cases To Be Reassessed by Police Panel," The Asian Age, August 18, 2004, pp. 2.
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individuals and groups prominently working to ensure that the violence against Muslims in 2002 is addressed by the legal and judicial systems.
VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders have boasted in private to journalists that tying up activists in lengthy legal proceedings is an effective to way to teach a lesson to the "pseudo-secularists," the term Hindu nationalists use for those that oppose their militant agenda. They offer the example of Tehelka, a private web-based investigative journal that had used hidden cameras to film senior politicians and officials accepting bribes in a fake defense deal. Instead of punishing those caught taking bribes, the then BJP-led government in New Delhi set up a commission of inquiry where Tehelka became the de facto defendant—forced to prove the authenticity of its reportage. The VHP leaders say, with some satisfaction, that Tehelka was forced to close down because its editors were busy with court hearings and investors were too wary to put in more funds. (Although the investigation is still going on, Tehelka was later revived with the help of supporters and allies.)52
1. Threats and harassment of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel
During the 2002 riots, Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel and her family fled from their village when it was attacked by a Hindu mob. They were later tracked down. The women were raped and killed. Bilkis, who was pregnant at the time, was gang-raped. Her three and a half year old daughter was snatched from her arms, and killed by being smashed to the ground. Bilkis survived only because the attackers presumed her to be dead. The Gujarat police made little attempt to prosecute the known perpetrators and closed the case. When Bilkis first went to the local police station on the following day, after she had come out of hiding, to lodge a complaint naming men prominently associated with the local BJP unit as members of the mob, her evidence was not recorded by the police. The case was later closed by the Gujarat police as "true but undetected."53
However, when Bilkis appealed to the Supreme Court for an independent investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)54, the Gujarat government immediately ordered the local police to investigate the case again. But instead of trying to arrest those responsible, members of the Gujarat (CID) Crime Branch began harassing Bilkis and her family. Bilkis and other witnesses in the case repeatedly expressed fear of the
52 Private communications with journalist working for international media.
53 "Crime and Complicity," Frontline, June 4, 2004 http://www.flonnet.com/fl2111/stories/20040606003029700.htm (retrieved August 12, 2004).
54 CBI is a federal investigative agency that handles cases of corruption and cases of interstate and other crimes of national importance. CBI inquiries are often demanded in cases where local or state investigations are perceived to be biased.
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Gujarat police. Their fear was so great that when the Gujarat government attempted to force witnesses to accept protection from the local police, they submitted their refusal in writing to the Police Inspector. Bilkis also complained to the Indian Supreme Court about harassment by Gujarat CID. On September 25, 2003, the Supreme Court took the highly unusual step of ordering the state police to stop all investigations in the case––thereby accepting the validity of Bilkis’ complaint––until its final ruling.
The CBI discovered a deliberate attempt by some Gujarat policemen and officials to cover up evidence in this case.55 The CBI filed charges against twenty people, including six policemen and two government doctors accused of tampering with evidence to shield the offenders. The CBI charge-sheet filed in April 2004 says that the local police, when lodging the initial complaint, "suppressed material facts and wrote a distorted and truncated version," then claimed that the accused were unknown even though Bilkis had named them. It also alleged that they had caused the disappearance of evidence to protect the offenders.56
In an affidavit supporting Bilkis’ plea to shift the trial out of Gujarat, the CBI wrote that, "It is apprehended that the witnesses might be threatened and harm could be caused to them after filing of the charge sheet and during the trial."57 In fact, even the CBI has faced threats. In April, CBI investigating officer K.N. Sinha submitted an affidavit saying that he had been threatened by some of the accused when, on the court’s directives, he had gone to photograph them in jail.58
On August 6, 2004, based on the report from the CBI which made it clear that the state administration could not be trusted to handle this case fairly, the Supreme Court ordered a change of venue from Gujarat to neighboring Maharashtra state.59
2. Police Inquiries and Interrogation of Mukhtar Muhammed, Kasimabad Education and Development Society
A Muslim businessman who had not been engaged in political activity prior to the 2002 riots, Mukhtar Muhammed and his family barely survived by running away from a mob around his home and going into hiding. Several other Muslims in his neighborhood
55 "CBI backs Bilkis plea for trial outside Gujarat," Press Trust of India, July 23, 2004.
56 "Crime and Complicity," Frontline, June 4, 2004 http://www.flonnet.com/fl2111/stories/20040606003029700.htm (retrieved August 12, 2004).
57‘"CBI Backs Bilkis Plea for Trial Outside Gujarat," Press Trust of India, July 23, 2004
58 "CBI Official Says Bilkis Accused Threatened Him," Press Trust of India, April 27, 2004.
59 See further discussion in Section B, "Intimidation of Bilkis Yakub Rasool and other witnesses."
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were not as fortunate and were injured or killed. After the violence, Muhhamed began a program to rescue Muslims isolated in villages still under threat of attacks. With the permission of local officials, he helped organize a relief camp for 3,500 people displaced by the violence.
In 2003, Muhammed began working with human rights activists, officials and lawyers to reopen cases that had been closed due to negligent or intentionally inadequate police investigations and reports. Muhammed helped produce affidavits from witnesses that led to a reinvestigation of many cases. As a result, lawyers believe there are now at least eleven cases in which they have statements strong enough to win convictions. Muhammed himself is a witness in some of these cases.
According to Muhammed, the success of his work with Muslim victims resulted in a series of threats from local BJP leaders and those accused in the cases that he has worked on. Through friends, he was also told that the families of the accused were willing to reward him if he stopped working with witnesses. Muhammed filed a complaint with the NHRC’s Special Representative in Gujarat, alleging that he was being threatened by "influential, dominant and powerful people including politicians and ministers."60 He continues to work in villages where he has been directly threatened or received offers of a bribe. Muhammed suspects that some of the accused against whom he is gathering evidence have influential connections in the state administration. He fears they might deliberately be trying to discredit him by charging him with terrorism.
Muhammed told Human Rights Watch:
They even started sending threats through Muslim leaders. When that did not work, they decided to tie me down in some legal or criminal case.61
Muhammed says that when it became apparent that he was ignoring suggestions from Muslim leaders––who often choose to collaborate with state authorities to secure their own safety––to give up his work on riot cases, he was named as a terrorist by BJP supporters, as well as a local newspaper called Sandesh, which often attacks Muslims on its pages. In January and February 2004, investigators from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) visited Muhammed’s home and office. He was also summoned to
60 Ritu Sarin, "Witnesses, Probe Teams Under Threat: NHRC Pointman," The Indian Express, February 26, 2004, http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=41866 (retrieved August 12, 2004).
61 Human Rights Watch interview with Mukhtar Muhammed, activist, Kalol, June 30, 2004.
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the CID office for interrogation. The investigating officials told him that he was a suspect in a bombing attack that occurred after the riots. They eventually dropped the investigation because Muhammed was able to prove that he was at a rehabilitation camp office on the day of the explosion.
In May 2004, another investigation was started against him. According to Muhammed:
The police said they had received orders from the Home Ministry based on a three-page complaint signed by fifteen or sixteen Bharatiya Janata Party leaders who said I was the mastermind in all the incidents after the Gujarat riots including bomb blasts and the attack in Akshardham.62 The police told me that they had already done their inquiry and asked me to reply to their questions. They covered minute details of my life. 63
Muhammed told the police that he had already been investigated and cleared. But he was told that since there had been complaints about him, he had to be questioned again. Muhammed says the questioning was aggressive and that the police were trying to trap him over inconsistencies about trivial facts, such as details of his whereabouts many months prior to the questioning. Muhammed believes that the police persisted in their investigations only because the complaints came from leaders of the political party in power in Gujarat. He also believes that the same people who lodged the complaints also act as protectors of those accused in riot cases. According to Muhammed, they are local level BJP or VHP leaders. As a Muslim in Gujarat, Muhammad told Human Rights Watch that he fears that he may some day be arrested under POTA as punishment for trying to bring the guilty to justice.
Even without a successful prosecution, these complaints may have served their purpose. For more than a year they have embroiled Muhammed in legal proceedings and disrupted his personal and professional life, leaving him with less time and energy to work on behalf of riot victims. According to Muhammed, as of August 2004, the police investigations were still continuing.
62 On September 24, 2004, two men attacked unarmed worshipers at the Akshardham Temple in Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat. At least twenty-eight people were killed and scores injured as attackers tossed grenades and opened fire with assault rifles. Indian security agencies claimed that the attack on the temple was planned by Pakistan-based militant groups with the support of some Gujarati Muslims to avenge the killings of Muslims during riots earlier in the year. Several Muslim groups joined other secular organizations in condemning the attack.
63 Human Rights Watch interview with Mukhtar Muhammed, activist, Kalol, June 30, 2004
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The NHRC’s Special Representative, P.G.J. Nampoothiri, has cited Muhammed in his reports on Gujarat. Muhammed, he noted, had received threats because he had supplied information to a Gujarat government official, Neerja Gortu, who was investigating police failure to register riot cases. Nampoothiri told the NHRC that individuals who provided information to Gortu, including Mukhtar Muhammed, had already received threats and that he feared the activists might face "legal action and/or physical assault."
In his complaint to the NHRC, Special Representative Nampoothiri, stated that:
Influential leaders…apprehending arrests and prosecution of their henchmen, have made representations to the government seeking action against those who helped Ms. Neerja’s team in identifying victims/witnesses.
3. Police Enquiries and Interrogation of Father Cedric Prakash, Director, Prashant, A Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace
Father Cedric Prakash was a leader in providing relief and rehabilitation to riot victims in 2002 through Prashant, a nongovernmental organization. He has frequently spoken at national and international gatherings about the riots, talking about the involvement of BJP supporters in instigating the violence and the failure of the criminal justice system and the state judiciary in riot related cases.
On April 26, 2004, an inspector from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Crime Branch came to interrogate Prakash in his office in Ahmedabad. The officer arrived at 9:30 p.m. and informed Prakash that the he was acting on the directives of Hashmukh Adhia, the principal secretary at Chief Minister Modi’s office. According to the inspector, the inquiry was based on an e-mail sent by Vishal Sharma, a well-known supporter of Chief Minister Modi, to the government of Gujarat, demanding that Prakash’s passport be impounded for his alleged anti-national activities. Although no formal charges were brought against him, according to Prakash, he was told that he was being investigated based on the e-mail, which referred to Prakash’s claims at international meetings that Hindu extremists were responsible for the riots, and for an interview he had supposedly given to a magazine, Milli Gazette, about his visits to prisoners detained under POTA at Sabarmati Jail and his opinion that these detainees were innocent.
Prakash responded in writing to these charges that same evening, saying that he visited the Sabarmati Jail as a social worker and did not specifically meet prisoners held under
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POTA. He also denied speaking to Milli Gazette, the magazine that Sharma had cited. "I serve people without any discrimination of religion," Fr. Prakash wrote in his statement. "The sender of the e-mail wants to stop me working with people and is trying to malign my image."64
On June 8, 2004, Prakash was visited again by the same detective, who asked for another statement because the government needed further clarification regarding his work. He was served a summons and asked to appear before the Crime Branch on June 10, 2004. He complied and was interrogated for about one-and-half hours in the presence of his lawyer. He was asked again about the prisoners he had met in the Sabarmati Jail, what they discussed and how many times he had visited them. As Prakash told Human Rights Watch:
It was clear intimidation to see if I would crack down and admit something so that they could link me to some kind of terrorist activity.65
According to Prakash, the investigation continues. His nongovernmental organization, Prashant, has also been questioned by the Charity Commissioner’s office. Prakash has filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission.
Human Rights Watch is concerned that the investigation into Prakash’s statements may interfere with his right to freedom of expression under international law and may be intended, as in the cases below, to have a chilling effect not only on Prakash but other activists in Gujarat.
4. Inquiries by the Charity Commissioner of Ahmedabad against human rights activists
On June 1, 2004, several human rights and civic society organizations working on behalf of the victims of the Gujarat riots framed a charter of demands to the newly elected government in New Delhi. Among other things, the charter called for an independent re-examination of all closed cases, cases of acquittal, and cases in which bail had been granted, and for monitoring of ongoing investigations and trials. It also called for a special judicial commission to inquire into the Godhra incident. The activists called for the prosecution of all government and police officers that failed in their duty to prevent
64 Written statement by Father Cedric Prakash to the Police Inspector, Crime Cell, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, April 26, 2004.
65 Human Rights Watch interview with Father Cedric Prakash, activist, Ahmedabad, August 19, 2004.
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and control the violence and asked for legal measures to enable the prosecution of the Chief Minister and his cabinet for planning, instigating, and abetting the violence and failing to perform their duties to provide relief and rehabilitation to the victims.
Soon after the charter was released, the Charity Commissioner of Ahmedabad, an arm of the state government of Gujarat, began sending inspectors to the Gujarat-based NGOs that had signed the petition. Staff members were questioned about their work, the object of their trust, and the names and addresses of their trustees.
According to Digant Oza, whose Satyajeet Trust is one of the NGOs investigated by the Charity Commissioner:
They asked for basic information like the names of the members of the trust and our objectives. They demanded all the information in writing—immediately. I don’t understand how these things can go on. Their purpose is clear. They are trying to find something on us, some activity that they can object to or some member who is not registered. They are looking for a technical fault to catch us. These investigations are still going on.66
Activist Teesta Setalvad asks some simple questions:
If they are investigating charity organizations, why are they also not investigating the RSS groups? Why are they only selectively looking at groups that working for the victims of Godhra and the riots that followed?67
While the government has the responsibility to ensure that NGOs comply with Indian law, the timing and the fact that these groups were working on riot-related cases suggests a deliberate attempt at harassment and intimidation.68 Many NGO officials told Human Rights Watch that they had never faced this kind of investigation before they started their work on riot cases. The offices of an NGO called Aman Samudaya, for instance,
66 Human Rights Watch interview with Digant Oza, journalist and activist, Ahmedabad, June 20, 2004.
67 Human Rights Watch interview with Teesta Setalvad, Mumbai, August 13, 2004.
68 See Hotline Asia Urgent Appeals, "Stop Harassment of Activists in Gujarat," http://www.acpp.org/uappeals/2004/040621s2.html.
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have not only had visits by the Charity Commissioner’s inspectors, but also from the intelligence bureau.69
On June 10, 2004, Father Cedric Prakash wrote to the National Human Rights Commission on behalf of all the NGOs and activists that had signed the charter of demands and were since questioned by the Charity Commissioner’s office: "Whilst we definitely agree that some this might be within the purview of law and within the mandate of the Police or the Charity Commissioner, the nature of the questions and obviously the attitude, clearly amounts to intimidation, harassment and brow-beating," and petitioned the NHRC to intervene immediately and "direct the state government and its institutions to stop intimidating and harassing innocent citizens and to insist that the state ensures the human rights of every single individual."70
5. Harrassment of Mallika Sarabhai, Darpana Academy of Performing Arts
Mallika Sarabhai runs one of India’s best-known performing arts institutions, the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, in Ahmedabad. Mallika Sarabhai and her academy have been targeted by state authorities ever since she filed a public-interest petition in the Indian Supreme Court calling for the protection of the rights of those injured in the Gujarat riots and a thorough investigation into and punishment of those responsible.71 Manushi Shah, a former member of Darpana filed a complaint alleging that Sarabhai had reneged on a promise to get the student a visa to the U.S. despite making a promise to do so when she enrolled in the dance program. Although Shah said that Darpana had refunded her fees and returned her passport once her visa application for the tour was rejected, she accused Sarabhai of denying her a "brilliant career in the US." "In effect," says Sarabhai, "she has accused me of not letting her immigrate illegally."72
A criminal case of fraud and intention to cheat was, however, filed by state prosecutors in Ahmedabad. A court then ordered her travel outside Gujarat restricted, saying that she would have to seek court permission before leaving Ahmedabad. The hearings for permission are constantly delayed, Sarabhai complained, leaving organizers on tenterhooks, and several corporate sponsors pulled out rather than risk a last-minute cancellation. In February 20, 2004, the Supreme Court asked the Gujarat government to
69 Human Rights Watch interview with Zakia Jowher of Aman Samudaya, Ahmedabad, June 19, 2004.
70 Letter from Father Cedric Prakash, Director, Prashant, A Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace to Justice A.S. Anand, Chairperson, National Human Rights Commission, June 10, 2004.
71 Public interest litigations can be filed by individuals or civil rights groups before the Supreme Court to take up matters of national interest.
72 Hindol Sengupta, "Mallika Sarabhai Celebrates Gujarat Judgement," Indo-Asian News Service, August 18, 2004.
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lift all restrictions imposed on Sarabhai, observing: "She is not a criminal. There has to be some fairness in the prosecution of persons."73
Sarabhai claims that the charges were made with malicious intent in a clear case of harassment and intimidation. She points out that her mother and then she have been running the school for fifty-six years, they have toured over ninety countries with hundreds of dancers and such charges have never been made before.74 Sarabhai see this as a conspiracy to get her to withdraw her public interest petition against the Gujarat government for its role in the riots, particularly because she later discovered that Shah’s parents were members of the RSS. Sarabhai has also been listed on the website of the Patriotic Sons of Mother India as a "human trafficker."
Sarabhai told Human Rights Watch:
My appeal for a dismissal of the criminal case against me will come up for its final hearing in the Supreme Court next month, where I have filed for it to be thrown out. It is significant though, that the same government that chose to close over 2,000 riot cases and delayed many others including many of brutal rape and murder for want of trained public prosecutors, has been so diligent in appointing their two senior-most prosecutors in my case where my only so-called crime is that I did not help a woman to illegally immigrate to the United States."75
The National Human Rights Commission asked the state government to look into these charges, citing a number of organizations and individuals who spoke in Sarabhai’s favor.
Mallika Sarabhai also told Human Rights Watch that since November 2003, she and her family have faced inquiries from the Income Tax department and the Charity Commissioner. Sarabhai suspects that these inquiries have been instigated the state government, particularly because the investigations started just as her public interest litigation on the Gujarat riots was due to be taken up by the Supreme Court. Earlier, she had received anonymous calls asking her to retract her petition. Sarabhai says she has heard from friends within the administration that there was a lot of pressure to "fix" her.76 Sarabhai is still out on bail which has to be extended every three months. According to Sarabhai:
73 "Court Removes curbs on Mallika Sarabhai," The Times of India, February 20, 2004, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/507336.cms (retrieved August 25, 2004).
74 Human Rights Interview with Mallika Sarabhai, Ahmedabad, August 25, 2004.
75 Ibid.
76 Mallika Sarabhai, private letter to friends and supporters, January 4, 2004.
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Darpana and I have been harassed and threatened continuously, amongst other things to try and cow me down into withdrawing my public interest litigation in the Supreme Court and to stop me talking at a variety of fora about the continuing boycott of the Muslims, the continuing lack of justice and other issues.77
Anonymous and Individual Threats and Intimidation
Witnesses, human rights workers, and lawyers fighting for justice in Gujarat have been subjected to threats and intimidation by extremist groups or anonymously, through phone calls or word of mouth. For example, Haroon Rashid Abdul Sattar Mansoori, a key witness in a riot case, said that he was stopped near a gas station on July 15, 2004, and threatened by some of the accused, including one man who was arrested and later released on bail.78 Another witness, Ali Hasan, a laborer, claimed that he was arrested and framed in a murder trial after being summoned to the police station ostensibly to record a statement about the murder of three persons during the riots on February 28, 2002.79
In an atmosphere of official hostility towards those supporting Muslim victims of the riots, the many acts of private intimidation and threats take on a more ominous character. They raise questions about the political will in Gujarat to provide adequate protection for those seeking justice.
Some police officers, particularly at the junior levels, are open about their support for extremist Hindu nationalist ideology. In fact, urging that critical cases be entrusted to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the NHRC has noted that, "It is the central principle in the administration of criminal justice that those against whom allegations are made should not themselves be entrusted with the investigation of those allegations."80 In some cases when witnesses have approached local police stations to lodge complaints about intimidation, policemen have refused to register their report until activists asked senior officials to intervene.81 In other cases, complaints were lodged, but the police took no action to investigate or prosecute those responsible.
77 HRW interview with Mallika Sarabhai, Ahmedabad, July 8, 2004.
78 Abhishek Kapoor, "Riots: Kalol Witness Faces Threats," The Indian Express, August 10, 2004, pp. 4.
79 Anand Biria, "Witness To Riot Framed For Silence," The Asian Age, August 21, 2004, pp. 1.
80 Special leave Petition, 2003, NHRC v. State of Gujarat and Others.
81 See Section I, Teesta Setalvad’s testimony.
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In June 2003, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, in a statement to the Nanavati-Shah Commission, complained that witnesses had no faith in an investigation that was being carried out "by a police force accused of grave lapses and misdemeanor during the violence," and said that "human rights defenders, social workers and lawyers of the minority community fighting cases for justice have all been threatened and face a serious threat to their lives."82
Many working for justice in Gujarat believe they live in an atmosphere in which members of extremist groups can threaten and attack activists with impunity. Activists live in constant fear because if there is a planned assault by these groups, there is little evidence that the police would act forcefully to prevent an attack. They cite the example of Ehsan Jafri, who did not get aid from the local police during the riots, though he called senior officers several times. He, and several others who had sought shelter with him, were killed. "There is fear because we have seen during the riots that the police can show up too late," says Father Prakash.83
1. Threats against activists and lawyers working on riot-related cases.
Rais Khan Azeezkhan Pathan is a local Muslim activist who has been encouraging witnesses to testify. He works closely with Suhel Tirmizi, a lawyer who has opposed bail applications of the accused. They have both collaborated on several riot cases with activist Teesta Setalvad. Each has received many threats. Each has ultimately received protection from the state government. Each has concluded that the protection offered was insufficient and then turned to central authorities for protection.
In June 2003, Rais Khan was threatened by a group of Hindu extremists as he escorted witnesses to an official inquiry into the riots. In November 2003, although he was with his police escort, Rais Khan received threats on his mobile phone. The male voice threatened to "finish him off," saying, "We are keeping track of you every minute."84 In April 2004, he again received a call on his mobile phone asking him to stop working on
82 "PUCL-Vadodara Shanti Abhiyan Withdraw from the Nanavati-Shah Commission Hearings" June 18, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/gujarat-pucl180603.htm (retrieved August 24, 2004).
83 Human Rights Watch interview with Father Cedric Prakash, Ahmedabad, August 19, 2004.
84 "Activist gets Threat Call in Viramgram," The Times of India, November 11, 2003, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articlesshow/msid-276726.htm (retrieved August 21, 2004).
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riot-related cases. The anonymous caller also made sexually abusive remarks about Teesta Setalvad.85
In April 2004 and again in June 2004, unidentified men claiming to be from Gujarat turned at Teesta Setalvad’s office-cum-home in Mumbai, demanding to see her. The guard at the gate refused to let them enter because they were aggressive and abusive.86 Setalvad has been among the most identifiable voices in the campaign for justice in Gujarat. Extremist supporters of the BJP and VHP have regularly called her ‘anti-national,’ as they did when they came to the Prashant office.87 Her name appears regularly as a ‘traitor’ on websites and chat rooms hosted by Hindu groups. She has also been viciously attacked in public speeches by VHP leaders, including by general secretary Praveen Togadia who said Setalvad should be prevented from entering Gujarat.88
Suhel Tirmizi says he faces opposition from some of his colleagues in the legal fraternity who support the extremist Hindu ideology. He has also received abusive anonymous phone calls asking him to stop his work, telling him that the caller knew where he and his family could be found. Other lawyers have received direct or indirect threats and warnings because they appeared on behalf of riot victims and told to withdraw from these cases. Lawyer-activist Huma Khan was threatened by the accused in court in Gujarat. Some other lawyers, who do not wish to be identified, have told Human Rights Watch that they have received warnings, in court, through anonymous phone calls, by email, or through others who are in touch with BJP/VHP supporters.
Tirmizi told Human Rights Watch:
Most lawyers in Gujarat are too scared to take up riot related cases. They feel isolated and do not want to face threats…I used to oppose bail applications of the accused, which is when I was identified and later threatened.89
In June 2004, after being told that the security provided by the local police was not effective, the Supreme Court directed the central government to provide security to
85 Human Rights Watch interview with Rais Khan Azeezkhan Pathan, activist, Ahmedabad, June 11, 2004.
86 Human Rights Watch Interview with Teesta Setalvad, Mumbai, August 13, 2004.
87 See testimony below. "Threats Against Teesta Setalvad and Father Cedric Prakash.
88 Digant Oza, "Who Cares For Supreme Court in Gandhi’s Gujarat?" Indiathinkersnet, April 17, 2004 http://www.countercurrents.org/gujarat-oza170404.htm (retrieved August 21, 2004).
89 HRW interview with Suhel Tirmizi, lawyer, Ahmedabad, on June 21, 2004.
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these three and the witnesses in their cases. Each believes that the local police were acting more as informers to help the government keep track of his or her movements and meetings than as a protector. Even with protection from New Delhi, they continue to receive threats via anonymous phone calls, threatening them for their work on the riot cases.
2. Threats against Trupti Shah and Rohit Prajapati, activists with People’s Union for Civil Liberties-Shanti Abhiyan
In 2002 Trupti Shah, a women’s rights activist, and her husband, Rohit Prajapati, who works with an environmental rights organization against industrial pollution, joined together with other volunteers to help riot victims. Together these groups formed a peace effort led by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in Vadodara city.
Both have since received constant threats from right wing extremist groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal, often in the guise of sympathetic warnings. Shah and Prajapati have lived in Vadodara for over twenty years and have friends who sympathize with the arguments of the Hindu groups. Shah and Prajapati have been told repeatedly by these friends that others, more closely connected with the Bajrang Dal, the state government or the VHP, have asked them to pass on warnings to the activists to stop their work. Shah told Human Rights Watch:
They are told things like, "Tell your Muslim-loving friends that many people are angry with them. They should be careful."90
They have also received threatening phone calls. According to Shah:
When we were working with riot victims, we were called anti-national, anti-social, anti-development and anti-Hindu by local members of the VHP and Bajrang Dal when they talked about us to the media or with our local Hindu friends… Attempts are made to threaten us by giving warnings to stop all our human rights and environmental activities. We are receiving phone calls where the caller remains unidentified. Recently a caller gave details of Rohit’s movements on a particular day and said that he is being followed closely. Other callers abused us and referred to our work with great hatred. Such phone calls have restricted our movements. We have stopped traveling alone at night and are forced to
90 Human Rights interview with Trupti Shah, activist, Vadodara, August 20, 2004.
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spend more money for safe travel. Many times we cannot use our own two-wheeler as we used to, and are forced to hire a car. We have been trying to judge the purpose and location of these callers but it is not easy for lone activists without proper resources.91
On October 5, 2003, the caller ID on their phone recorded a cell phone number. The caller had initially claimed to be from the crime branch, but his number was later traced to a private detective agency. A formal complaint was lodged with the police commissioner of Vadodara, but as of August 30, 2004, there had been no progress reported by the police in apprehending the caller.
3. Threats against Teesta Setalvad, Citizens for Justice and Peace, and Father Cedric Prakash, Director, Prashant, A Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace
On April 12, 2004, the same day that the Supreme Court ordered the retrial and change of venue of the Best Bakery case, two men forced their way into the offices of Prashant in Ahmedabad. They demanded to meet Teesta Setalvad, Convenor of the Citizens for Justice and Peace, a co-petitioner in the Best Bakery case, who happened to be on the premises for a meeting. One of the two men identified himself as "Dr. Atul."
Setalvad and some others present at Prashant for the meeting recognized the two men as Dr. Atul Vaidya and Bharat Teli, both of whom were among those accused in the so-called Gulbarg Society massacre during the 2002 riots, where at least sixty-five people, including Ehsan Jafri, a former member of India’s parliament, had been killed. Although named by witnesses as perpetrators, no charges have been filed against these two men. But an appeal for re-investigation of the Gulbarg Society massacre is pending with the Supreme Court and many of those indicted fear that they will be arrested. 92
Father Cedric Prakash, director of Prashant, immediately alerted some senior police friends about the visitors. When the two men realized that Prakash had summoned the police, they left the office, but not before hurling abuse at Prakash and Setalvad and threatening "their end." About an hour later these two men were still standing outside shouting threats, now joined by a group of about ten young men demanding to meet
91 Human Rights Watch interview with Trupti Shah, activist, Vadodara, August 15, 2004.
92 See Human Rights Watch report We Have No Orders to Save You, April 2002, pp. 18. Over 250 people had taken shelter on Feb 28, 2002 in the home of Ehsan Jafri, a former member of parliament. For seven hours, even as Jafri made countless phone calls to the police, the Chief Minister and the central home minister among others, a mob first stoned his housing complex where he lived and eventually attacked the Muslims sheltering there, killing people with swords or burning them alive. At least sixty-five people including Jafri were killed.
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Prakash and Setalvad and asking why the two of them were defaming Hindus. Police officers then arrived and so the group left after shouting more slogans.
According to Prakash, the police responded promptly because Prakash is an eminent citizen of Ahmedabad who has connections with senior police officers, and was able to contact the police commissioner directly. But, as many activists pointed out to Human Rights Watch, others are not so fortunate, and uncertain about what will happen if someday they need to rely on the police—the same, un-reformed force that for the most part simply stood by and watched as the 2002 riots unfolded and innocent, defenseless Muslims were slaughtered.
Prakash was later assured orally by friends in the police department that Dr. Vaidya and Bharat Teli had been warned, and would not attack him again. But no charges had been filed against these men as of August 30, 2004, even though Prakash had photographed them shouting outside the Prashant office and submitted the pictures to the police.
Setalvad, a prominent local activist and lawyer, has received many threats, but cannot rely on the local police to protect her. For that reason, she is now protected by security forces under the central government instead of the Gujarat police.
4. Attack on volunteers of Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD)
On April 11, 2004, about a dozen BJP and Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists attacked the volunteers of Youth Aman Karwan, a caravan for peace. They were in Vadodara as part of a countrywide tour organized by ANHAD to promote communal harmony. The thirty- member delegation, all between the ages of fourteen and twenty, was led by Shabnam Hashmi, head of ANHAD, who has been involved in lobbying for the rights of those injured in the Gujarat violence. The students were addressing press conferences and meeting youth groups all over India, covering forty cities, towns and villages in one month. According to Hashmi:
In Vadodara, during the press conferences, two journalists started heckling the students and calling them anti-national for maligning Gujarat. Then they raised slogans and left. When we came out of the hotel room, where the press conference was being held, approximately forty VHP goons immediately surrounded us, using extremely vulgar language and gestures, physically manhandling me, misbehaving with the girls, breaking our vehicles and looting material, beating up one
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participant called Manan and humiliating him. Two vehicles with students were taken to the police station for safety. Many of the children had spent agonizing hours in the police station and were unable to contact me as I was still surrounded by the goons and later struggling with the police to file a report at the spot of the incident93
This program was a well-publicized event and activists point out that the police should have been aware that extremists might choose to attack the group in the present circumstances where there is such a strong feeling of communal hatred in Gujarat. They say that the police failed to provide adequate security in this case. If the police were sufficiently interested in protecting Gujarat activists, an organized mob would not have been allowed to gather outside a hotel for a planned attack on peace activists. No charges had been filed in this case as of August 30, 2004, although there were several eyewitnesses to the attack.
5. Intimidation of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel and other witnesses
Because she pursued the prosecutions of the men who gang raped her and killed fourteen members of her family, Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel has received numerous threats and had to constantly relocate her residence.
On August 6, 2004, the trial of the accused became the second to be transferred out of Gujarat. It is the only case of sexual violence where charges have been filed. Despite the transfer of the case, activists fear that attempts to bribe or intimidate witnesses will continue unless they are given adequate protection. Just physical protection, they say, is not enough. Witnesses are vulnerable, activists point out, because the Gujarat government has failed to adequately support several displaced Muslims, many of them key witnesses, who live in resettlement colonies without electricity, water or medical facilities.94
Farah Naqvi was a member of several fact-finding missions to Gujarat that investigated gender-based crimes during the Gujarat riots. One team produced The Survivors Speak, the first report to document the scale and brutality of mass sexual violence against Muslim women during the riots.95 For the last two years, Naqvi, along with activist-
93 Human Rights Watch interview with Shabnam Hasmhi, activist, New Delhi, July 5, 2004.
94 Human Rights Watch interview with Farah Naqvi, activist, New Delhi, August 18, 2004. Also see Harsh Mander, "Gujarat’s Victims Completely Isolated," Times of India, November 23, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/gujarat-mander231103.htm (retrieved August 18, 2004).
95 The Survivors Speak was released on April 16, 2002. Two later reports, Survivors Speak Part II, and a report by the International Initiative for Justice, also focused on gender-based crimes during the riots.
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lawyer Huma Khan and Delhi-based women’s rights activist Malini Ghose, has been helping riot victims with rehabilitation and in their pursuit of justice. In particular, they have been working with Bilkis Yakub Rasool. According to Naqvi:
We have been forced to relocate Bilkis at least twenty times over the last two and a half years because of threats to her life and family. Threats have been received in various forms. One of these threats was made directly to Huma Khan when she was in Dahod court during one of the hearings. A man walked up to her and said: "You can take Bilkis wherever you want. How long will she hide? Eventually she will have to come here. Let our men be out on bail, then we will see where she hides from us." Khan complained to the Gujarat Director General of Police and copied her notice to the NHRC special rapporteur in Gujarat. There has been no action by the Gujarat police in this matter.96
Many of the witnesses in Bilkis’ case have also been threatened repeatedly, including during the re-investigation phase by the CBI. One witness made a representation directly to the CBI about threats and offers of money that he had received. His complaint has been included in the CBI investigations. Despite the fact that the trial has been shifted to Mumbai, the witnesses continue to reside in Gujarat in extremely vulnerable circumstances, in a resettlement colony, and continue to be under threat.
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