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Living In Fear
With violence
continuing in Gujarat, read a first-person account by India Today's Uday
Mahurkar on how the commom man lives in the shadow of insecurity.
The
unprecedented dance of death, plunder and arson which began with the killing
of 58 Ramsevaks at Godhra on the morning of January 27 continues. It has
already claimed around 700 lives,
over 80 per cent of them Muslims. Scores are missing, whether live or
dead nobody knows. There's a good number of the living, some 1.5 lakh
of them, all diplaced and penniless, in the makeshift camps dotted across
central and eastern Gujarat. A majority of villages in the two regions
hardly have any Muslims anymore. With insecurity having seized them, they
are unwilling to return and are going about their daily grind like zombies.
At one stage last week, an end to the violence seemed to be in
sight. But a section of Muslims attacked Hindus in Ahmedabad's
walled city with swords and illicit firearms and set fire to the
Sindhi market. Police resorted to firing, killing four Muslims. The attacks
followed banners that were spotted in some Muslim areas "vowing revenge
against the Hindus". Two other incidents in which a which a Patel
boy was killed in Sabarkantha district and a Muslim mob attacked an LIC
building, brought the situation back to square one.
Thus began another round of anti-Muslim violence. The pattern was slightly
different now. It revolved more around individuals and in many cases armed
Hindus zeroed in on Muslims with Hindu wives. In one such gruesome case,
a Muslim personality development instructor in Vadodra, Raja Rasul Mshani,
was hacked to death even as his Hindu wife ran for her life and another
accomplice of Mashani, a Hindu, was attacked for supporting a Muslim.
Efforts by Chief Minister Narendra Modi to provide foolproof
security have largely failed. Gujarat, is still simmering under
communal violence. Noted National Human Rights Commission chief Justice
J.S. Varma: "I came with a heavy heart but am going back with a heavier
one. There's insecurity amongst the people. The police didn't do enough
to control the situation." That Varma addressed as many as three
press conferences as NHRC chairman before filing his report was unprecedented
and raised quite a few eyebrows.
Modi, for his part, accused the secularist lobby and the Opposition for
targeting him over the Gujarat riots. "It seems
they just don't want peace in Gujarat. That's why they are
presenting a distorted picture. From Delhi, the Opposition and the
secularists are adding fuel to the Gujarat fire. Things will come
around only after the Lok Sabha session ends," he rued. But not
everyone agress. Mehamood Shaikh, a displaced, crestfallen Muslim in an
Ahmedabad relief camp, believes an end to the mad cycle of destruction
is only in the hands of the Almighty.
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