AHMEDABAD, 17 July 2003 — Judges probing last year’s bloody riots in the western Indian state of Gujarat opened a new chapter yesterday in a probe which could implicate police and politicians in the killings.
Judges G.T. Nanavati and K.G. Shah began hearing depositions from Hindus and Muslims who witnessed the rioting which killed at least 1,000 people across the western state in 2002.
Muslim men and women told harrowing stories of being chased by Hindu mobs, and of rapes, arson and murders, often in full sight of Gujarat’s police force. Fifty-six-year-old Munshi Solanki, who owned four restaurants jointly with Muslim partners, said his eateries were burned to the ground during the rioting that continued for at least two months after erupting in February 2002.
“There are other Hindu restaurants in the area but my restaurants were targeted because I have Muslim partners,” Solanki, a Hindu, told the judges from New Delhi. Solanki said he was able to save 10 of his employees but three Muslim workers were burned to death in one of his restaurants.
Another witness, Amrish Narendra Patel, told the judges that the rioters appeared to be members of the hawkish Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).
“While I was returning home from office on Feb. 28, I saw a mob gathered in front of a restaurant and a supermarket. They were looting the supermarket and the restaurant was in flames. Some of men in the mob had saffron bands on their forehead,” said Patel, referring to the VHP’s trademark headgear.
“The police were passive even as the restaurant and supermarket burned,” Patel, another Hindu, told the judges. The two-judge federal panel has received 4,500 petitions from riot victims across the state and has held hearings in 22 districts of Gujarat.
The current hearing, however, does not cover the deaths of 130 Muslims in Ahmedabad city’s Naroda-Patia area.
