NEW DELH, 27 April — Survivors of the sectarian strife that has gripped the western state of Gujarat for nearly two months gathered here yesterday to recount gruesome tales of killings, rape, arson and looting.
At a meeting organized by rights groups Communalism Combat and Sahmat, those who survived the violence that has claimed over 900 lives broke down as they spoke about their family members being killed and their homes being destroyed by mobs.
The common thread running through their accounts was the failure of the state police to control organized violence by mobs that they said were often aided or abetted by politicians belonging to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Among the survivors was Raja Bundubhai, 11, who appeared to be in a daze as he spoke about his mother Zarina and sister Nasreen being stabbed and burned alive while they tried to escape a mob at Naroda Patiya, an Ahmedabad slum. Speaking before a battery of television cameras, he said: “I saw it all happening. While I stood on a wall, I saw my mother and sister being stabbed. Then they sprinkled kerosene on both and burned them alive.”
Had an elderly man in the mob not intervened, Bundubhai too would have suffered the same fate as his mother and sister did. “He said, ‘Don’t kill the child.’ Though others argued, he told me to run away. I still remember the old man’s face.” The meeting’s organizers referred to it as a public hearing of the survivors of the “Gujarat genocide.”
Details about the meeting were announced hours before it began at 3:00 p.m. Some 40 people currently living in relief camps in Gujarat arrived here yesterday morning to narrate their harrowing experiences. As survivor after survivor criticized Chief Minister Narendra Modi for failing to control the violence, Ibrahimbhai Ganchi, a former soldier, went a step further. Fighting back his tears, Ganchi — who lost five relatives, including his father and brother — said: “There is a fire running through my veins. If I could, I would finish off Modi. I would do to his family what he did to mine.
“I served the Indian Army for 17 years with honor and dignity. Now I just want the government to take some steps to resettle my homeless family.” Faridabibi was among those who just wanted an end to the violence.
“Are humanitarian values dead in India? We have no clothes, security or homes. We don’t even know if this country is ours any more.
“When will these atrocities end? What has the government being doing all these days to end the killing and bloodshed?”
The central government has been strongly criticized by rights groups for failing to control the sectarian strife while several European nations have expressed their concern at the violence, which has been directed mostly against the Muslims.
