Relief and Rehabilitation

Crime Against Humanity 
Volume 2 An inquiry into the carnage in Gujarat -- Findings And Recommendations by Concerned Citizens Tribunal -Gujarat 2002

Relief and Rehabilitation

1 Relief
2. Compensation
3. Rehabilitation
4. Situation of Muslims in Gujarat
5. Violation of Basic Human Rights

1 Relief

1.1. From the night of February 28, when brutal and systematic attacks against tar-geted sections of the Muslims population in Ahmedabad city began, distressed resi-dents were shepherded out of their homes and localities, often in hired buses, in thedead of the night by community leaders. Over night, relief camps came up in the cityand by March 5 a staggering 98,000 refugees were housed there. Even by the admissionof the district magistrate and collector of Ahmedabad, there were 66,000 refugees inthese camps. In none of these efforts was any state presence visible.

1.2. By March 1, a similar situation was observed in over one dozen districts ofGujarat (see Detailed Annexures: List of Camps, Volume III). Independent sources showthat outside Ahmedabad, as many as 76,000 refugees were housed in camps all overthe state. Official figures put this amount at about 25,000. In any event, even by thestate government’s own assessment, at least 91,000 persons were displaced as a di-rect result of the carnage. Independent assessments put these at closer to 1,74,000refugees in the state of Gujarat after the first flush of brutal violence; a staggeringfigure by any standards. Besides, not all the survivors moved into camps— manywent to the homes of their relatives and so on. Including them in the calculation,independent estimates put the total number of displaced Muslims in Gujarat at notless that 2,50,000.

1.3. In the days following the first bout of brutal violence, agents of the state,notably the collectors/district magistrates of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Mehsana,Himmatnagar, Anand, Sabarkantha, Banaskantha, Bharuch and Ankleshwar districts,as also the officials of some police stations, obstructed truckloads of privatelymobilised relief material — milk, foodgrains, etc. — from reaching the camps. There-after, the same officials harassed and penalised the refugees by, among other things,not giving them sufficient food. The conduct of these IAS and IPS officials calls forstrong penal action.

1.4. The Tribunal is greatly concerned and outraged by the fact that only the leader-ship of the Muslim community was involved in the running of the relief camps beRelief and Rehabilitation cause others did not come forward. Though some non-Muslim NGOs did contributesubstantial amounts of aid to these relief camps right until August, the vast bulk ofrelief assistance to the refugees came from the community itself.

1.5. The government is under a constitutional obligation to protect the basic rightsof every citizen and duty bound to start and run relief camps for the violence af-fected. Instead, for days and weeks, the Gujarat government adamantly refused evento recognise the existence of refugees (a direct consequence of the state sponsoredcarnage). It refused to register the relief camps and denied relief assistance — water,food, medical aid, sanitation — from state coffers.

1.6. In blatant and brazen contrast to the Gujarat state’s attitude to the earthquakevictims just one year earlier, when the ghastly earthquake of January 26, 2001 rockedthe state, this time neither the Gujarat government nor the government of India appliedto the UN and other international agencies for relief and rehabilitation measures.

1.7. Equally, the Tribunal notes with concern and anguish that an insignificant numberof international aid agencies came forward in the case of the Gujarat carnage, to helpthe victims. Given the scale of the state-perpetrated violence and given the response ofinternational aid agencies to such carnages in other areas in the past, it was incumbenton the United Nations relief agencies, including the United Nations DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP), the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), the World FoodProgramme (WFP), the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the United NationsOffice for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as well as internationalhumanitarian organisations, to provide relief and rehabilitation assistance to all thosedisplaced and dispossessed by the communal carnage in Gujarat, without discrimina-tion. That this did not happen speaks volumes about the political dimensions of aid andintervention by foreign countries when mass crimes of this kind occur.

1.8. Similarly, the fact that major national newspapers which, during such calamitiesin the past, have always set up independent relief funds, did not do so in the context ofGujarat 2002, speaks for the silence and complicity that surrounds relief and rehabilita-tion of the survivors of the Gujarat carnage. This bodes ill for India’s polity.

1.9. Six relief camps had to approach the Gujarat High Court (special civil applications 3773 of 2002) through a writ petition — supported by the Citizens for Justice andPeace — and a senior advocate had to be flown down from Mumbai for arguments,before the Gujarat government gave an assurance in court that it assumes responsibilityfor providing adequate relief to the camps — food, water (30 litres per person per day),public toilets, medical aid, timely payment of rupees 5 per person per day and shamianasfor protection from the scorching heat. Justice Pradeep PB Majmudar delivered theorder on this writ petition on April 22, 2002. The petition had also urged army protection for the relief camps since, on more than one occasion, instigated by politiciansbelonging to the ruling party and the police, relief camps had been attacked.

1.10. The attitude of the chief minister of Gujarat, Shri Modi and that of his cabinet colleagues obviously percolated down to the entire state administration and police, towards innocent persons made victims of a state sponsored carnage and rendered refugees in their own homes and homelands, is nothing short of shocking. Forthis alone, Shri Modi and his cabinet are guilty of gross dereliction of their constitu-tional obligation and duty.

1.11. On March 6, none less than Gujarat’s minister for food and civil supplies, ShriBharat Barot had the temerity to state in a much publicised interview that since Hindus inhis constituency, living close to the Dariakhan Ghumbat camp in Ahmedabad, felt inse-cure with so many Muslims living in a camp nearby, the camp should be closed down.

1.12. As recently as September 9, at Becharaji, Mehsana, during his Gujarat GauravYatra, none other than the chief minister made a shocking public declaration: ‘‘What shouldwe do? Run relief camps for them? Do we want to open baby producing centres?’’

1.13. The first time that the Shri Modi condescended to visit the Shah-e-Alam ReliefCamp in Ahmedabad city was a full month after the carnage broke out, on April 4.

1.14. Again on May 31, a public interest litigation (special civil application number5311 of 2002) had to be filed in the Gujarat High Court by the Citizens for Justice andPeace and Communalism Combat to elicit an assurance from the state that relief campswould not be forcibly closed down. On June 4, the petitioners obtained an oral assur-ance from the government pleader that there would be no closure of the camps atleast until June 30, 2002. It was on this precise date, that the state government, throughthe collector of Ahmedabad, began exerting pressure on camps and threatened penalmeasures against camp managers, if they did not ‘voluntarily’ sign a statement sayingthey wished to close down their camps. On June 26, when the matter came up forhearing, the petitioners, several camp managers and refugees filed 25 affidavits, de-tailing the extent of abdication of primary duty by the state and shocking instances ofcoercion and pressure being used against refugees and camp managers.

1.15. Due to the callous attitude of the government and threats of penal actionagainst individuals, a camp at Jahangirnagar, Vatwa was forced to shut down on June1. As a result, over 600 refugees were forced to reside under the open sky despiteheavy rainfall. None of these refugees had until mid-May received any compensationfor the destruction of their homes. In a way, the pending writ petition, ensured re-sumption of rations and shifting of some of the refugees to camps in permanentplaces like the Haj House and Qureshinagar. Shri Javed Munnabhai Sheikh, the ad-ministrator of the Patrewali Masjid relief camp, Saraspur, Ahmedabad was threat-ened directly by the collector on the issue of the number of refugees living there.Invariably, the collector would come for a headcount in the afternoon – when someof the refugees would have gone out for a few hours — not in the morning or at night.This was a deliberate ploy used by the state administration to discredit the camps.While the Tribunal has detailed some of the specific instances where direct coercionwas used to threaten camp managers to shut down, there was not a single relief campin Gujarat where officials did not try and browbeat the managers. Camps in rural areaswere forcibly shut down in mid-May itself. This appears to be a clear ploy on the partof the Gujarat government to portray an image of normalcy, when there is nothingabout Gujarat that is normal even now.

1.16. The writ petition pertaining to relief is still alive before the Gujarat HighCourt. To enable a proper assessment of the condition of the refugees and thescope and extent of government rehabilitation, the petitioners also conducted adetailed, state wide refugee survey. They presented this before the court in theform of an affidavit and urged that a monitoring committee for rehabilitation beput in place. They have also demanded that the court ask for complete account-ability from the Gujarat government regarding the Rs. 150-crore rehabilitationpackage announced by the Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee when he vis-ited Gujarat on April 4.

1.17. Certain aspects of the survey are important. It points out that apart from thenearly 20,000 persons who remained in camps in early-May within Ahmedabad city(only 13,500 as per government figures), another 2,000-odd persons were still livingin camps located elsewhere in the state, but they all had ceased to exist for the gov-ernment. These camps – Nandasan, Gandhinagar district (419 persons), Dasaj, Mehsanadistrict (400 persons), Lunava, Shivali, Gunja near Visnagar, and Unjha, all in Mehsanadistrict (with100 persons, 400 persons, 50 persons and 250 persons respectively),Lunavada, Panchmahal district (460 persons), and Vadali, Sabarkantha district (200persons) – were summarily closed down between mid-May and early July and thegovernment assumed no responsibility for their relief or rehabilitation needs. Thestate admited in court that there are only 13,482 refugees in the state (all of them inAhmedabad city). To these, the state was then supplying foodgrains grudgingly throughthe district collector; with only three-four days ration being dished out at a time. This isnot, however, an accurate picture of the number of displaced persons. The actions ofthe state government on the ground, therefore, run contrary to their assurances made tothe court. Moreover, the actions of the state government and its agencies in coer-cively shutting down relief camps is malafide, given the abject refusal of the govern-ment of Gujarat and its chief executive, Shri Modi, to actively engage in any rehabili-tation or reconciliatory measures. The reluctance of the Gujarat government to pro-vide relief to the inmates of these camps (where even water and foodgrains had to beobtained through court orders), and its subsequent use of coercion to close themdown, is intrinsically connected to an abject and crude refusal to concern itself withrehabilitation of it’s citizenry.

1.18. None will argue that life in a relief camp should continue forever. But thescale and brutality of the violence at a dozen places across the state of Gujarat,where victims were quartered, and girls and women gang raped before being burnt toashes to destroy evidence, requires re-location of the victim-survivors to more con-ducive surroundings where life, liberty and security can be somewhat assured. Hencethe attitude of the Gujarat government in coercively closing down camps, thus forc-ing victims to ‘disappear’, is shocking, to say the least. Moreover, it is linked to theissue of the refusal of the government to rehabilitate the victims of the carnage. Bothare violations of the just and humane principles underlying Indian constitutional lawand international covenants related to violence, refugees and state responsibility.

2. Compensation

2.1. This brings us to the crucial issue of compensation for the enormous humanand material loss during such mass man-made disasters and crimes. Can the amountof Rs. 1.5 lakh ever compensate for the loss of a life deliberately, cruelly and brutallytaken away? What when a family loses not one but over five family members, menand women, especially those who are in the prime of their lives, leaving bitter heirsbehind? What about the loss of livelihood, dignity, a sense of family and security?

2.2. The Gujarat government showed itself in a crudely partisan and anti-constitu-tional light when it initially announced discriminatory amounts of compensation forthe survivors of the Godhra tragedy and the post-Godhra carnage.

2.3. The history of compensation in our country is a chequered one. Each timethere are mass crimes of the kind of the carnage witnessed in Gujarat, governmentshave issued GRs announcing compensation. In Mumbai, after the 1992 violence, largelyagainst the minorities, the government announced compensation to the tune of Rs. 2lakh for every life lost. Obtaining this amount by the bereaved families was facilitatedby NGOs who continually put pressure on the government. However, the familymembers of at least 174 “missing persons”, whose bodies were either not found ordeliberately burnt beyond recognition, have, till date, been denied this compensation.In addition to this, the government’s insistence that a Rs. 7,000 bond be given by thesurvivors lends further indignity and injustice to the paltry compensation.

2.4. A survivor of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi was granted Rs. 2 lakh ascompensation ten years after the pogrom, by an order of the Delhi High Court.

2.5. The death of a military officer under mysterious circumstances, due to grossnegligence and callousness, saw the Supreme Court awarding Rs. 6 lakh to the widowof the deceased (Charanjit Kaur v/s Union of India AIR SC, 1994). In a historicjudgement by the Supreme Court in DK Basu v/s State of West Bengal, 1996, thecourt laid down the fundamental principles of monetary compensation, ruling thatappropriate compensation is “indeed an effective and sometimes, perhaps, the onlysuitable remedy for redressal of the established infringement of the fundamental rightto life of a citizen by a public servant.” The court also held that in the assessment ofcompensation, the emphasis should be on the compensatory and not on the punitiveelement. The award of compensation in public law jurisdiction is also without anyprejudice to any other civil action for damages.

2.6. These are just a few of the judicial awards of compensation made in a varietyof cases. The Gujarat high court itself had awarded Rs. 2 lakh as interim compensa-tion to the widow of Narendrasinh Zala, a 29-year-old assistant intelligence officer,who was subjected to mental and psychological torture that led to his death in policecustody in 1997. (Dharmishtaben Narendrasinh Zala v/s. State of Gujarat 1997).In this case, the court ruled that when great loss and injustice is caused to a personwho has lost her beloved, and her life has become miserable by way of an atrocity bya police officer, she is not in a position to undertake any orthodox litigation andproceeding. Therefore, interim compensation can be awarded under Article 226.

2.7. Suffice it is to say that in the case of mass crimes like the Gujarat carnage, orother such instances of selective and targeted crimes against sections of the population,like the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984, or the anti-Dalit violence that takes place periodi-cally, the discretionary dole that the state announces as compensation is in no waycommensurate with the loss of life, dignity, livelihood and property of the victims.

2.8. Similarly, abdicating its primary role as protector and provider of all its citi-zenry, the Gujarat government has made no efforts to compute the extent of the lossof lives, the quantum of the destruction of homes, belongings, businesses and agri-cultural properties to date.

2.9. A measly Rs. 2,500 is being given as dole to persons for loss of householdgoods (ghar vakhari) and, though the Prime Minister had announced that Rs. 50,000would be given for loss of homes, less than 10 per cent of those who have obtainedhome compensation from the Gujarat government (at least 25 per cent of the totalaffected have not received anything at all) have got more than Rs. 30,000 each. Formost of the survivors of the Gujarat carnage, the state government has rubbed salton the wounds already suffered, by giving them paltry amounts of Rs. 1,200-2,500each or less.

3. Rehabilitation

3.1. The Gujarat government has shown a similar callous indifference to the reha-bilitation of the victims of continued violence. Barely a year ago, when a devastatingearthquake struck the same state, the Gujarat government evolved an elaborate Earth-quake-2001 Rehabilitation Package No. 1 for the earthquake affected and similarPackages No. 2, 3, 4, 4a, 4b, 5 followed. The Tribunal has closely examined thesepackages. They show an elaborate and responsible concern on the part of the stategovernment to categorise the damage to homes and compensate the loss on the basisof this categorisation. These packages show that the state government awarded dam-ages from Rs. 7,000, for a hut that had fully collapsed, to Rs. 8,000, 15,000, 30,000,45,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh, depending on the extent of damage. Besides, the packagesshow government involvement in the repair and replacement of infrastructural facilities like health, sanitation, roads, education, water supply and power. It also talks ofthe restoration of community assets and economic livelihood. It talks of restorationof cultural and heritage sites. The packages include the suspension of property taxand other taxes for a year and grants-in-aid to sustain the municipalities. It talks of adetailed survey to be conducted by the state, using technical teams, photographs andother data, to assess the damage. Only the bare details of these seven-eight packagesannounced by the government of Gujarat, run by the same party, just over a yearbefore the carnage, have been detailed here. The intent is to simply establish howdeeply discriminatory, callous and objectionable the conduct of the Gujarat govern-ment is in the context of the carnage.

3.2. Not only has no comprehensive rehabilitation package been declared even fivemonths after the violence, no survey has been conducted. And by its behaviour and action, the government has made it clear that it wishes to have nothing to do with thephysical and psychological rehabilitation of its own people, the Muslims of Gujarat.In fact, unofficial NGO surveys and reports suggest mass migrations from Gujarat toMumbai, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, UP and Bihar. Thenumber could be a staggering 15,000.

3.3. Apart from the loss of about 2,000 lives, the destruction of businesses isworth at least Rs. 3,800 crore. The damage caused to private homes and agriculturalproperties of at least 3,00,000 victims of Gujarat has not been computed. Not lessthan 270 mosques, dargahs and other shrines, representative of our composite cul-ture, were systematically destroyed in the first five days of the carnage. Instead ofshowing shock and remorse at the fact that the religious places of worship and thecultural heritage of the minority community were damaged and destroyed, Shri Modihas made public pronouncements, stating that there was no question of his govern-ment either buying land to re-house survivors, for whom returning to a threateningenvironment is an impossibility, or of repairing or rebuilding mosques, dargahs andshrines that have been damaged.

3.4. Reporting on a meeting of a 100-odd representatives from among the Muslimcommunity with the CM, The Times of India said, “CM outrightly rejected the demandthat riot-affected victims from the worst-affected areas like Naroda Patia, Chamanpura,Sardarpura, Best Bakery, Panvad and other carnages be provided with alternate re-settlement sites… He also refused any government fund to rebuild the ransackedshrines. The CM’s tough talk came at a gathering organised by the Gujarat MinoritiesFinance Development Corporation chairman, Shri Gani Qureshi.” (The Times of India,Saturday, June 8, 2002). It becomes clear from this and other reported decisions thatthe Gujarat government does not feel in the least obligated to rehabilitate the victimson humanitarian, egalitarian, constitutional or on any other grounds.

3.5. This attitude of the chief minister and his government is in direct viola-tion of the recommendation of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)that has directed the government to rebuild all the shrines of religious and cul-tural importance that have been destroyed. In fact, according to a news reportthat appeared in The Pioneer on August 28, 2002 titled, ‘ASI ordered to repairGujarat monuments’, it was reported that the union minister for culture and tour-ism, Shri Jagmohan had ordered the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to re-pair any protected monuments damaged or destroyed in either the Gujarat earth-quake or the carnage. According to the ASI, some of the protected monuments tobe repaired include historic mosques like the Ishanpur Masjid at Paldi, Ahmedabadand ‘makbaras’ (tombs) from the Sultanate period, destroyed during the carnage,and the Lothal and Dholavira sites of the Indus Valley civilisation that were dam-aged during the earthquake. Evidence recorded before the tribunal shows thatmany historic, religious and cultural sites were systematically targeted in the vio-lence. It is to be hoped that this decision of the central tourism and culture min-istry is implemented swiftly.

4. Situation of Muslims in Gujarat

4.1. The Tribunal notes with concern and dismay, the continuing misery ofthe victim Muslim community in Gujarat. In areas where the most brutal inci-dents of mass killing, quartering and killings (often after sexual crimes againstwomen and girls were committed) took place, statewide surveys by indepen-dent groups show that there is no question of the victimised section of resi-dents returning to their original place of residence. (See Detailed Annexures: sta-tus of Refugees, Volume III). These include survivors of Ghodasar, Sardarpura,Pandharwada, Ode, Sanjeli, Randhikpur and Chanasma massacres, as also resi-dents of villages in Gandhinagar district itself, where Muslims were in a smalland hopeless minority. They also include areas like Gulberg society, Ahmedabad.Though many residents of Naroda Gaon and Patiya have returned, this has beenunder duress, after the forced closure of the refugee camps where they hadsought shelter. Many others have been rehabilitated by Muslim NGOs in differ-ent parts of Ahmedabad, while a significant number have migrated to otherstates.Agricultural land holdings owned by Muslims in districts are being cal-lously taken over by miscreants and dominant interests.

4.2. In many villages, especially in Mehsana, Gandhinagar, Panchmahal and Dahoddistricts, Muslims who have returned to their battered homes were facing a strictlyenforced economic boycott by the dominant castes and communities through theirrefusal to buy milk products from them, to hire them as labour on their fields, etc. Anear permanent loss of livelihood, and therefore a reduction to penury, was an immi-nent and serious likelihood. The urgent need for intervention by central and stateagencies is a must before this enforced destitution causes further alienation andmarginalisation of these populations.

4.3. In welcome contrast to the above, in many regions of Sabarkantha andBanaskantha districts, it appears that a sincere effort was being made by membersfrom the dominant community to isolate those in their midst who have led and fo-mented trouble, and to take a stand against violence in the future. In Chhotaudaipur,where sections of the Adivasi population have been misled and misused by dominantsections of their own and other castes, there has been a genuine expression of re-morse, too, about the incident.

4.4. That only a fragile peace prevails in the state can be gauged from the fact that,with the slightest hint of fresh aggression or trouble, vulnerable sections of the Mus-lim population who have returned to their original or new places of residence rushback to the security of those camps that are still running. This happened, the Tribunalhas noted, for a whole week around the time of the July 12, 2002 rath yatra, which theGujarat government, in its irresponsible attitude to governance, refused to postponeor re-route. The same thing happened again, on September 24, when the attack on theAkshardham temple in Gandhinagar took place. Overnight, the refugee camp at HajHouse had to provide for over 4,000 terrified persons, while the capacity of the campis only 1,925. Needless to say, on such occasions, not only has the Gujarat government failed in providing a sense of security to large sections of its own citizenry, ithas not even provided the ration and costs to camp managers who have borne theentire expenses.

4.5. It is shocking and unfortunate that while the situation on the groundremains grim in the state, where no remorse has been expressed, no justice is insight, where relief has only grudgingly been given and rehabilitation measureshave been meagre, the sole desire of the government appeared to be to proclaim‘normalcy’ before the country and the world. At no time was this babble ofnormalcy exposed more effectively than during the visit of the two teams ofthe Chief Election Commission to the state in August 2002. The extensive vis-its of the teams to the towns and villages of Gujarat, their assessment of thestatus of criminal investigations, the pathetic plight of homes that even sixmonths after the violence lie in a state of total disrepair, are shocking pointersto the extent that the government of Gujarat has gone, and continues to do so,to literally delegitimise the rights and the very existence of a section of itscitizens — the Muslims of Gujarat.

4.6. The story of Gujarat today, especially of cities like Ahmedabad, is one ofbrutally enforced ghettoisation of the Muslim minority in their residential colonies asmuch as in their business and trade enterprises. This phenomenon has been growingsteadily over the past two decades (See chapter, Build-Up in Gujarat, Volume II) but thepresent carnage has made it very acute. In parts of Ahmedabad, it is becoming in-creasingly difficult for the Muslim minority to live, inhabit and move freely in areasthat are now seen as “Hindu”. This state of affairs should be unacceptable in any partof Constitution-bound India.

4.7. During the violence, communal polarisation had taken place in public andprivate hospitals, in schools and in many other public arenas. The Tribunal finds thatnot only is this ugly reality in Gujarat shocking, there is no effort at all on any signifi-cant scale, either by the state or in civil society, to protest and rectify the situationthrough short and long-term measures.

4.8. For the religious minorities, the state of affairs in Gujarat is blatantly discrimi-natory and in violation of the Indian Constitution. The Tribunal regrets to record thatwith the connivance of the state, they have already been reduced to the status ofsecond-class citizens.

5. Violation of Basic Human Rights

5.1. The crimes against humanity that took place in the state of Gujarat after Feb-ruary 27, were all gross violations of basic human rights. The survivors were rendereddestitute. All the homes, schools, cultural and religious places, that have been dam-aged or destroyed need to be rebuilt.

5.2. All the offences were offences under sections 302/307, 295 and 153 of theIndian Penal Code.

5.3. Despite the mass crimes committed against large sections of the population of Gujarat, the police response to the crimes was such that justice was not done. This isevident from the fact that mass FIRs were filed, often even panchnamas were not re-corded and an investigation of forensic evidence was not undertaken.Our examination of the voluminous evidence, including the statistics gathered bydifferent groups, clearly reveals that in each case the system was not geared to cope.

5.4. In Gujarat, even the appointment of public prosecutors followed neither con-stitutional principles nor the basic principles of criminal justice.

5.5. Section 164 of the IPC empowers the judge to inform himself/herselfabout the truth. This is a section that can be, but has not been used in manycases, to get at the truth.