III.Massacres In Godhra And Ahmedabad

Godhra
The ongoing violence in Gujarat was triggered by a Muslim mobs' torching of twotrain cars carrying Hindu activists on February 27, 2002. The attack followed an altercation between Hinduactivists and Muslim vendors at the train station in Godhra that morning, around 8:00 a.m., but the sequenceof events is still disputed.⁷ Fifty-eight passengerswere killed, including fifteen children and twenty-five women, according to Gujarat state officials.⁸

Among the victims of the Godhra massacre was Gayatri Panchal, asixteen-year-old girl who saw her father and sisters burnt alive. She told the press, "After peltingstones, they poured kerosene on our compartment and set it afire. I was pulled out of the broken window. I sawmy father and sister inside. I saw them burning."⁹After a visit to the massacre scene, the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Justice J.S. Vermastated, "I saw the burnt coach and saw chappals [sandals] still strewn. There were chappals ofchildren too."¹⁰

Godhra, a city of 150,000, is evenly split between Hindus and Muslims, most ofwhom live in separate neighborhoods.¹¹ Godhra wasplaced under curfew for a year after communal clashes in 1980. Serious clashes occurred again in 1992 afterthe destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.

The Godhra railway station is situated in an overwhelmingly Muslim section ofthe city. For three weeks preceding the killings, trains carrying Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists had beenstopping daily in Godhra.¹² The activists were comingto and from Ayodhya, where the VHP sought to begin construction of a Hindu temple on the disputed site of themosque destroyed by Hindu activists there. VHP leaders had set March 15, 2002 as a deadline to bring thousandsof stone pillars to the site in order to begin construction of the temple.

There are significantly divergent accounts about the events leading to thedispute that resulted in the Godhra killings. Human Rights Watch was not able to independently verify theaccuracy of these varying accounts, but it was widely reported that a scuffle began between Muslim vendors andHindu activists shortly after the train arrived at the station. The activists, who had been chanting Hindunationalist slogans, were said to have refused to pay a vendor until he said "Jai Shri Ram" or"Praise Lord Ram."¹³ As the train then triedto pull out of the station, the emergency brake was pulled and a Muslim mob attacked the train and set it onfire.¹⁴

Initially Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi claimed that the killings werean "organized terrorist attack."¹⁵ Federalgovernment sources speculated that they were "pre-meditated," or the work of Pakistan'sInter-Services Intelligence (ISI).¹⁶ However, seniorpolice officials in Gujarat have now concluded that the killings were "not preplanned" but ratherthe result of "a sudden, provocative incident."¹⁷In addition, a report from the Railway Protection Force (RPF) has concluded that the killings resulted from aspontaneous altercation between VHP activists and merchants on the railway that escalated out of control,rather than a planned conspiracy.¹⁸

There was some forewarning of violence from within the police itself.Additional director general of police G. C. Raigar, had provided intelligence ahead of the Godhra incidentthat VHP volunteers were moving in and out of Gujarat and could instigate communal violence. He was removedfrom his post after presenting evidence to news media that law and order in the state could be compromised byVHP volunteers coming to and from Ayodha. He had also questioned the government's ability to provide securityto the Hindu activists or take other measures, despite repeated warnings.¹⁹

Over sixty persons have been arrested for the Godhra train attack.²⁰Unlike the persons who have been arrested for revenge attacks on Muslim communities in Gujarat, the Godhraarrestees were initially charged with crimes under the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, now the Preventionof Terrorism Act.²¹ The charges under POTO wereeventually dropped after considerable pressure, but Chief Minister Modi reserved the state government's rightto pursue charges against the Godhra arrestees under POTO at a later time "if thought fit."²²

In response to heightened national security concerns, and as relations withPakistan deteriorated and violence in Kashmir and elsewhere escalated, the Indian government introduced POTO,a modified version of the now-lapsed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) of 1985,which facilitated the torture and arbitrary detention of members of minority groups and political opponents.POTO was introduced as a bill during India's winter session of parliament in 2001 and signed into law by thepresident pending parliamentary proceedings on the ordinance. POTA was passed on March 27, 2001. Under TADA,tens of thousands of politically motivated detentions, systematic torture, extrajudicial executions, and otherhuman rights violations were committed against Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits, trade union activists, and politicalopponents in the late 1980s and early 1990s.²³ In theface of mounting opposition to the act, India's government acknowledged these abuses and consequently let TADAlapse in 1995. Civil rights groups, journalists, opposition parties, minority rights groups, and India'sNational Human Rights Commission unequivocally condemned POTO. POTA sets out a broad definition of terrorismthat includes acts of violence or disruption of essential services carried out with the "intent tothreaten the unity and integrity of India or to strike terror in any part of the people." Since it wasfirst introduced the government has added some additional safeguards to protect due process rights but POTA'scritics stress that the safeguards don't go far enough and that existing laws are sufficient to deal with thethreat of terrorism.

The Ahmedabad Massacres: Naroda Patia and GulmargSociety
Naroda Patia and Gulmarg Society were the site of two of the deadliest massacresin Ahmedabad. Human Rights Watch visited both sites and interviewed numerous eyewitnesses to the attacks whohave since been residing in relief camps. Some of their testimony is included below.

Naroda Patia
Located just across the road from the State Reserve Police (SRP) quarters, NarodaPatia was the site of some of the most brutal attacks in Ahmedabad. On February 28 at least sixty-five peoplewere killed by a 5,000-strong mob that torched the entire locality within minutes. Countless others sustainedsevere burns and other injuries. Women and girls were gang-raped in public view before being hacked and burnedto death. Homes were looted and burned while the community mosque, the Noorani Masjid, was destroyed usingexploding gas cylinders. Extensive use and access to Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders has also beencited as evidence of official collusion.²⁴

Naroda Patia used to be a mixed community of Hindus and Muslims. The nearlyone thousand Muslims were in a minority and lived in a slum facing the state transport workshop.²⁵Most surviving Muslim residents are now scattered in relief camps.

In the days that followed February 28, hundreds of youths brandishing swords,daggers, axes, and iron rods were seen shouting "Jai Shri Ram" and roaming roads lined with guttedshops and littered with burned trucks, rickshaws, and other vehicles.²⁶

Human Rights Watch visited Naroda Patia three weeks after the attacks. TheMuslim homes were completely burned while the Hindu homes stood unscathed. The area's mosque, the NooraniMasjid, just across the road from the SRP post, had also been destroyed. According to one human rightsactivist who visited the site of the burned mosque soon after the attacks, at least sixteen gas cylinders,used as explosive devices, remained inside the mosque.²⁷

A thirteen-year-old boy described the role of the police during the attack:

The police was with them. The police killed seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds.The mob also burned down our home. At 10 a.m. they went after our mosque. Thirty to forty tear gas shells werereleased by the police as we, about fifty boys, were trying to save the mosque.... They killed oneseventeen-year-old and eight to ten other boys were injured.... We kept calling the police but no one came....The police would pick up the phone and hang up when they heard it was from Naroda Patia.²⁸

Another eyewitness interviewed by Human Rights Watch added: "When wetried to run, the police started firing. It was morning time. Many were hiding in Masjid Chali [lane]. We camehere [to the camp] early on the morning of March 2."²⁹

Fifty-five-year-old Salima Banu, a resident of Naroda Patia was a witness asher son was shot and killed by the police:

My son was running to save his life and the police shot him. Our home wasbehind Noorani Masjid. They were coming to set the mosque on fire. Then we started running. A bullet hit myson's arm and then his stomach. No one was answering the police phone. The police took their side and notours. My son's name was Shafiq. He was eighteen years old... No one came to help. He was suffering so much.His arm fell off. I have received nothing from the government.... So many people are also missing. Some havelost their mother, their son, their father.³⁰

Samuda Bhen, a mother of two, lost all her valuables in the looting andburning on February 28 and the days that followed and identified members of the Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena, andthe police as the main culprits:

They took my daughter's dowry. This is my daughter [she pointed to her]. Sheis seventeen. Her name is Mumtaz. She was supposed to get married. Now the groom won't come. They also burnedmy son's rickshaw. They burned everything after we left. During the attack they were screaming "Killthem. Cut them." We left on March 1. We stayed at home until then. The police sided with them. They wereBajrang Dal people. They were wearing saffron bandannas. There were also Shiv Sena people. First the policecame, they searched the mosque, they were checking for weapons to see if it was safe for the others to come.Then the others came. The police station is right near us. The police was with them for three full days. Wekept telling them to help us.³¹

Forty-year-old Naseem Banu told us: "Wherever we hid, the police showedthem where we were. The police remained standing when our homes were burned down."³²

Naroda Patia residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch also witnessed rapesand other forms of sexual violence against Muslim women and girls during the attacks.

A female eyewitness told Human Rights Watch, "they raped them, cut themand then threw them in a well. They cut them with swords. Everything is gone, you won't even find dogsthere."³³ Samuda also witnessed the raping andkilling of young girls: "They took young girls, raped them, cut them and then they burned them."³⁴Others simply did not have the words to describe the attack: "You won't be able to bear it if we tellyou. They are scared, they won't speak, people have been asking for days what happened. What difference has itmade? We don't want to go back there. Our lives are in danger there [Naroda Patia].... We won't go back toPatia; we will go anywhere else. We even left without our shoes, all our hard-earned saving are gone."³⁵One female resident said, "Some girls even threw themselves into the fire, so as not to get raped."³⁶A ten-year-old girl added, "I saw it also, they cut them down the middle."³⁷

Testimonies collected by the Citizens' Initiative, a coalition of overtwenty-five NGOs, and submitted to the National Human Rights Commission are replete with incidents of gangrapes of Muslim girls and women and the role of the police during the attacks, particularly in Naroda Patia.These testimonies are cited as transcribed by the Citizens' Initiative. A resident of Naroda Patia, Ahmedabadtestified that eight out of eleven family members were killed on February 28, two after being raped. Thesurviving three members sustained serious injuries:

Like hundreds of others, a resident of Naroda Patia witnessed the gang rape ofgirls and women. The names of the victims have been omitted to protect their privacy:

Gulmarg Society
In the neighborhood of Gulmarg Society, Chamanpura, Ahmedabad, over 250 peopletook refuge on the morning of February 28 in the home of Muslim Ehsan Jaffrey, a former member of parliament.An ordeal that began at 10:30 a.m. ended seven hours later and left at least sixty-five dead, includingJaffrey himself, who was hacked and burned to death. The closest police station was less than a kilometeraway. The two Ahmedabad Home Guards already stationed at Jaffrey's home only had sticks as weapons andaccording to eyewitnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch provided no protection; one said the guards"were watching and laughing as the attacks took place."⁴⁰

In a petition submitted to the NHRC, the Citizens' Initiative stated that themob, estimated at 5,000, had grown since morning in Gulmarg Society. Jaffrey made countless phone calls to thepolice, the chief minister, and the central home minister among others asking for protection but to no avail.The telephone lines were cut after the neighborhood's homes were set on fire. Armed with swords, pipes, acidbottles, kerosene, petrol, hockey sticks, stones, and trishuls, the mob was unrestrained for six hours. Amongthe perpetrators identified were workers and local officials of the VHP and Bajrang Dal.⁴¹

Thirty-eight-year-old Mehboob Mansoori lost eighteen family members in theattack at Gulmarg Society. He described the day's sequence of events to Human Rights Watch (full testimony inintroduction):

They burnt my whole family.

At 10:30 a.m. the stone throwing started. First there were 200 people then 500from all over, then more. We were 200-250 people. We threw stones in self-defense. They had swords, pipes,soda-lemon bottles, sharp weapons, petrol, kerosene, and gas cylinders. They began shouting, `Maro, kato,'[Kill them, cut them] and "Mian ko maro." (Kill the Muslims). I hid on the thirdfloor.

Early in the day at 10:30 the police commissioner came over and said don'tworry. He spoke to Jaffrey and said something would work out then left. The name of the commissioner of policethat visited in the morning is P.C. Pandey, commissioner of police Ahmedabad....

At 3:30 p.m. they started cutting people up, and by 4:30 p.m. it was gameover. Ehsan Jaffrey was also killed. He was holding the door closed. Then the door broke down. They pulled himout and hit him with a sword across the forehead, then across the stomach, then on his legs.... They then tookhim on the road, poured kerosene on him and burned him. There was no police at all. If they were there thenthis wouldn't have happened.

Eighteen people from my family died. All the women died. My brother, my threesons, one girl, my wife's mother, they all died. My boys were aged ten, eight, and six. My girl was twelveyears old. The bodies were piled up. I recognized them from parts of their clothes used for identification.They first cut them and then burned them. Other girls were raped, cut, and burned. First they took theirjewelry, I was watching from upstairs. I saw it with my own eyes. If I had come outside, I would also havebeen killed. Four or five girls were treated this way. Two married women also were raped and cut. Some on thehand, some on the neck.⁴²

Fifty-three-year-old Mansoori Abdulbhai, also a resident of Gulmarg Society,Chamanpura lost nineteen family members in the attack. He told Human Rights Watch:

Nineteen members of my family were killed. My wife, my mother, my son, mydaughters-in-law, my brother's daughter-in-law, and others. We found fourteen of the bodies, five are stillmissing. Those fourteen are buried here [at a mass grave site next to the Dariyakhan Ghummat camp in Shahibaug].Sixty-two people were killed there, twenty-nine bodies have not been found. First they cut people so theycouldn't run and then they set them on fire. One or two women were taken aside and gang-raped. After fivehours the police came and brought us here. It was so well planned. We buried fourteen members of my familyhere on March 7.⁴³

As with Naroda Patia, even pregnant women were not spared. The husband of aneighteen-year-old woman and resident of Gulmarg Society, Chamanpura told the Citizens' Initiative: "Shewas pregnant and it was the 9^th month of the pregnancy. Her house was attacked by a large mob. Herwomb was cut open with a sharp weapon and the unborn baby was taken out and both mother and the child wereburnt dead."⁴⁴

Sixty-year-old Rosam Bibi, who used to live in Vijay Mill, Naroda side, alsofled to Ehsan Jaffrey's home for refuge: "We went to Ehsan Jaffrey's home on the 28^th.. I wason the ground floor. The mob came in and threw petrol and started a fire. There was heavy smoke. They told usto give them our jewelry. They took everything. Then they hit everyone and I got burned. Then they pulledpeople outside and cut them and burned them."⁴⁵

Bibi's eighteen-year-old son, Ilias Bhai, added: "At 10:30 a.m. the stonethrowing began, we got surrounded. They were shouting `Ram, Ram, Jai Ram' [Ram, Ram, Praise Ram].... Mybrother and sister-in-law were both killed."⁴⁶

Twenty-three-year-old Rasida Bhen, Ilias's wife, still bore visible headinjuries at the time of the interview with Human Rights Watch. She spoke to Human Rights Watch about themurder of her husband's brother and his wife, twenty-three-year-old Aslam Usman Bhai, and twenty-one-year-oldNaseem Bano:

They pulled them out and cut them up. When we came out then we saw that he wascut in the stomach, the chest and the head. They came with trishuls. My sister-in-law was burnt. First theytook her jewelry. Then took her into the kitchen and exploded the gas cylinder. They wanted to get rid of allthe evidence. They had been married for fifteen months and she was five months pregnant.⁴⁷

Referring to attacks on other women, Rasida added:

First they took everyone's jewelry. Then they raped the women, then they cutthem up, and then they burned them. They should get as strict a punishment as possible.... I was hit with apipe. We ran outside when the gas cylinder exploded and then later the police came and we left.⁴⁸

A forty-five-year-old man named Yousuf Bhai told Human Rights Watch that thepolice commissioner "betrayed" the victims:

They wanted to leave by the railroad behind Jaffrey's house, but the policecommissioner said, " No, don't you trust me? You must stay here." Jaffrey even said, "Kill meand leave them alone." After the police brought people here [the camp] then all night they set bodies onfire, so there could be no cases against them, so there could be no evidence. Without police support, none ofthis could have happened.⁴⁹

⁷ Celia Dugger,"After Deadly Firestorm, India Officials Ask Why," New York Times, March 6, 2002.

⁸ "Death toll inIndian train inferno rises to 58," Reuters, February 28, 2002.

⁹ Praveena Sharma,"Survivors of Indian Train Attack Tell of Fire Horror," Agence France-Presse, February 28, 2002.

¹⁰ "NHRC ChiefSets Deadline," Times of India, March 24, 2002.

¹¹ Rajiv Chandrasekaran,"Provocation Helped Set India Train Fire," Washington Post, March 6, 2002.

¹² Priyanka Kakodkar,"`Just like Hindustan-Pakistan,'" Outlook, March 18, 2002.

¹³ Dugger, "AfterDeadly Firestorm"; Rajiv Chandrasekaran, "Provocation Preceded Indian Train Fire: Official FaultsHindu Actions, Muslim Reactions for Incident That Led to Carnage" Washington Post, March 6, 2002;"Train attack not pre-meditated," Times of India, March 8, 2002; Siddharth Darshan Kumar,"Muslim attackers set fire to train carrying Hindu nationalists, killing at least 57," AssociatedPress, February 28, 2002.

¹⁴ Dugger, "AfterDeadly Firestorm"; Chandrasekaran, "Provocation Preceded Indian Train Fire."

¹⁵ Ashok Sharma,"Indian violence spreads in wake of train fire that killed at least 58," Associated Press, February28, 2002. Reacting to government assertions that the Godhra incident was an act of terrorism, a resident ofChartoda Kabristan relief camp told Human Rights Watch: "They keep talking about terrorism and Pakistan.But isn't what has happened to us worse than terrorism?" Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld),Ahmedabad, March 23, 2002.

¹⁶ "Needle ofSuspicion Points Towards ISI in Godhra Incident," Press Trust of India, March 1, 2002; "ConspiracyTheories Abound Over India's Religious Riots," Dow Jones International News, March 6, 2002.

¹⁷ Chandrasekaran,"Provocation Helped Set India Train Fire," Washington Post; Kingshuk Nag, "Godhra AttackNot Planned," Times of India, March 28, 2002.

¹⁸ The RailwayProtection Force is a central government police force for Indian railways. RPF officers were present duringthe Godhra massacre; S. Satayanarayanan, "Godhra Carnage Not Preplanned: RPF Report Dispels ConspiracyTheory," Tribune, April 9, 2002.

¹⁹ Sheela Bhatt,"Intelligence chief who had warned Gujarat government transferred," rediff.com, April 8,2002, http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/apr/08bhatt.htm(accessed April 17, 2002).

²⁰ "Gujarat DefersUse of POTO against Godhra Accused," Times of India, March 26, 2002.

²¹ A resident ofChartoda Kabristan relief camp in Ahmedabad told Human Rights Watch: "POTO is being put up but why hasthe government not filed a POTO case against the VHP? Is the law only against Muslims? It should be appliedequally against everyone." Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld), Ahmedabad, March 23, 2002. InSeptember 2001 the Indian government also drew sharp criticism from numerous minority groups for selectively banning theStudents Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) as part of its post-September 11 actions to counter terrorism whileignoring the "anti-national" activities of right-wing Hindu groups. At least four people were killedwhen police opened fire on a protest in Lucknow on September 27, following the arrest of some SIMI activists.Human Rights Watch, World Report 2002: Events of 2001 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2002), p. 225.

²² Ibid. During theriots that followed the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and 1993, a number of Muslims were alsoarrested under the provisions of TADA. See Human Rights Watch, "India: Communal Violence and the Denialof Justice," A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 8, no. 2, April 1996, available at http://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/India1.htm(accessed April 15, 2002).

²³ Human Rights Watch,"India Human Rights Press Backgrounder: Anti-Terrorism Legislation," November 20, 2001, http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/india-bck1121.htm(accessed April 15, 2002).

²⁴ Prasenjit Bose, Dr.Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Vijoo Krishnan, and Vishnu Nagar, "Ethnic Cleansing in Ahmedabad: A PreliminaryReport," SAHMAT, March 10-11, 2002, http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20020322&fname=sahmat&sid=1(accessed April 15, 2002).

²⁵ Radha Sharma andSanjay Pandey, "Mob burns to death 65 at Naroda Patia," Times of India, March 2, 2002.

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ Human Rights Watchinterview (name withheld), Ahmedabad, March 23, 2002.

²⁸ Human Rights Watchinterview (name withheld), Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

²⁹ Human Rights Watchinterview (name withheld), Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

³⁰ Human Rights Watchinterview, Salima Banu, Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

³¹ Human Rights Watchinterview, Samuda Bhen, Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

³² Human Rights Watchinterview, Naseem Banu, Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002. See also Bose, "Ethnic Cleansing in Ahmedabad."

³³ Human Rights Watchinterview (name withheld), Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

³⁴ Human Rights Watchinterview, Samuda Bhen, Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

³⁵ Human Rights Watchinterview (name withheld), Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

³⁶ Human Rights Watchinterview (name withheld), Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

³⁷ Human Rights Watchinterview (name withheld), Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

³⁸ Citizens'Initiative, "Sub: Asking for appropriate action in the communal riots of February 2000 in Gujarat."(Signed petition submitted to the National Human Rights Commission of India, New Delhi), March 2002.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ Human Rights Watchinterview (name withheld), Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

⁴¹ Citizens'Initiative, "Sub: Asking for appropriate action."

⁴² Human Rights Watchinterview, Mehboob Mansoori, Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

⁴³ Human Rights Watchinterview, Mansoori Abdulbhai, Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

⁴⁴ Citizens'Initiative, "Sub: Asking for appropriate action."

⁴⁵ Human Rights Watchinterview, Rosam Bibi, Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

⁴⁶ Human Rights Watchinterview, Ilias Bhai, Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

⁴⁷ Human Rights Watchinterview, Rasida Bhen,, Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.

⁴⁸ Ibid.

⁴⁹ Human Rights Watchinterview, Yousuf Bhai , Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.