AHMEDABAD, India, 27 July 2004 — At least two men were killed and eight others injured yesterday after riots erupted when Muslims allegedly harassed a Hindu woman in the western Indian state of Gujarat, the police said.
Police imposed a curfew and opened fire on the rioters, killing one of them, a police spokesman said, adding that another person was stabbed to death. Eight others were injured in the fighting and rioters torched shops in the communally-sensitive town, he said.
Local police chief B.D. Vaghela said tension “spread like lightning” through several riot-scarred neighborhoods of the town, some 320 kilometers southwest of the state’s commercial capital Ahmedabad.
“There has been large-scale arson in which 40 to 50 shops have been burned down by the rampaging Hindu mob,” said Vaghela, adding that police also used teargas to disperse the mob targeting Muslim neighborhoods.
More than 2,000 people were killed in anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat which broke out after a mob torched a train carrying Hindu activists, killing 59 people.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court yesterday stayed till Aug. 2 the trial in a Gujarat court of the case relating to Bilkis Yakoob, a gang rape victim of the post-Godhra riots of 2002.
A three-member bench consisting of judges Ruma Pal, S.B. Sinha and S.H. Kapadia stayed the trial of the case in the city sessions court of Ahmedabad after amicus curiae Harish Salve pointed out that the trial court would frame charges on July 29.
The bench also adjourned till Aug. 2 the application of Bilkis seeking transfer of the case outside Gujarat on the ground that the atmosphere in the state was not conducive to a fair trial.
Bilkis had cited a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) report, which had pulled up the local police for its tardy investigation and the planned manner in which killings took place alongside her gang rape.
She pointed out that the CBI had even arrested the investigating officer of the state police and filed a charge sheet on April 19.
She expressed the apprehension that the trial might not be fair if it was held in Gujarat.
She further said that the case was ripe for trial and it should, therefore, be conducted outside the state.
Fully supporting Bilkis, the CBI said it feared that witnesses might be threatened and they could be harmed during the trial.
Witnesses might even be prevented from appearing before the trial court for their deposition as they were mostly residing in Dahod district to which the 12 accused belonged. The accused police officers were also serving in the same district.
The CBI had already requested Gujarat’s principal secretary (home) and the director general and inspector general of police to provide security to 33 important witnesses.
In view of this, the CBI would have no objection if the case were transferred out of Gujarat to any competent court in Maharashtra in the interest of justice.
However, the Gujarat government stated that there was no reason for shifting the case outside the state as the atmosphere was conducive for conducting the trial.
