AHMEDABAD, India, 22 August — Nearly 500 Muslims reported missing after India’s worst religious riots in a decade may have actually been killed because there is no trace of them six months later, private groups said yesterday.
Officials say more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in a wave of revenge killings in Gujarat after a mob burned a train with 59 Hindu activists in February. Human rights groups put the toll from the riots at more than 2,000.
"Five hundred people missing after the riots have all been killed," said Mohsin Qadri, head of Citizen Relief Service, a charity group in Gujarat.
The recovery of two skeletons earlier this week from a drain in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s largest city that bore the brunt of the violence, is proof that the people said to be missing were slaughtered and their bodies concealed, the group said.
The government said that 377 people went missing after the riots on the basis of complaints filed with police. But non-governmental organizations peg the number at around 500. "The recovery (of the skeletons) only underlines what we have been saying all through," Qadri said.
The skeletons recovered earlier this week from the Muslim-dominated old quarter of Ahmedabad were those of two Muslim youth who went missing on Feb. 28, when marauding Hindu mobs hacked and torched alive scores of Muslims.
Authorities have so far declined to add the number of missing to the list of those killed during the riots, saying some could still be alive outside Gujarat.
"One cannot say that all missing are dead. Though almost six months have passed after the riots, there is a possibility some of the missing are still alive," Prakash Shah, a senior official for Gujarat’s Interior Ministry, said. Rights groups say more skeletons may be recovered. "I think this is only the beginning," said Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit priest heading the Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace.
After waiting nearly six months, authorities this week asked relatives of those missing to file for the same compensation — 150,000 rupees ($3,061) — given to the relatives of those killed. "The move to compensate relatives (of the missing) only shows that even the government believes they are dead," said Qadri.
But money provides slim consolation for some relatives. "I would like to believe that they are still alive somewhere," said Abdul Shaikh, whose father and brother have been missing since Feb. 28.
