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Assalamu'alaikum
Let's put the blame where it belong. The Hindoos are murderous and
fanatical, But Muslims, who want peace and justice, are protecting their
rights and lives. You are either with us or with the terrorists some jerk
in the white house recently said.
ININ
Muslim villagers fleeing firebomb attack are electrocuted by murderous
Hindus
By Peter Popham in Ahmedabad
04 March 2002
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=251156
The cement homes in the narrow cul-de-sac on the edge of the village stand
open today, ready for their owners to return, to light a wood fire in the
kitchen, turn on the small television on a shelf in the corner and bolt
the door. But after what happened here early on Saturday morning, no one
believes the Muslim labourers of Sadarpur will come back.
The assault began soon after 2am. I was told that 10,000 people (likely to
be an exaggeration), from surrounding Hindu-majority villages descended on
Sadarpur and in little more than one hour slickly eviscerated this little
community of about 140 Muslims.
Tree branches and lengths of concrete sewer piping were dragged across
access roads to stop army and police reaching the village. When the thugs
arrived they flooded the dead-end lane with water, then electrified the
water with cables hooked up to the mains. They clambered on to the low
roofs of the houses, smashed holes in them and hurled in petrol bombs and
Calor gas cylinders that exploded inside, driving the residents out into
the lane. There, many were electrocuted. Their bodies were dragged back
into the houses to burn.
Others fled out of back windows into fields. Some got away, others were
hunted down and incinerated. Some were sheltered in homes of sympathetic
Hindus in the village, but the marauders tracked them down and butchered
them. At least 28 men, women and children died.
"Now it's not possible for Muslims to stay here," a Hindu living near by
says flatly.
Fifty kilometres (30 miles) away, in the majority-Muslim village where the
survivors have found shelter, one of them agrees. "We decided that we must
leave that place," says MY Pathan, a teacher. "We left everything behind,
we came with what we were wearing. And we don't want to go back, even to
collect our belongings."
The Hindu-Muslim violence in the west Indian state of Gujarat has claimed
almost 500 lives in the past five days, though senior police say privately
the figure may exceed 1,000. The first 58 to die were Hindus, pilgrims
returning from Ayodhya, incinerated in their train carriages. But in wave
after wave of retribution that followed, almost all who died have been
Muslims.
The violence spread yesterday to the country's most populous state, Uttar
Pradesh, where Hindus and Muslims clashed. While arsonists continued to
attack Muslim homes and businesses in Ahmedabad, the state's commercial
capital, yesterday, Gujarat was struggling to come to terms with the fact
that these new waves of murder and destruction have been different from
anything the state has seen before. Across Gujarat, Hindu militants are
seizing the opportunity to kick-start a programme of brutal communal
cleansing.
Like many of last week's victims, the Muslim labourers of Sadarpur were
extremely vulnerable: their simple homes are notably smaller and more
primitive than those of the Hindus who surround them on three sides. But
until last week, such exposure meant nothing. As well as a temple, the
village has a sizeable mosque, and a higher-caste Muslim community living
close to it.
Hindu-Muslim riots have broken out almost every year in Gujarat the
fountainhead of Hindu nationalism but they have been confined to the big
cities. With the killing of the Hindu pilgrims last Wednesday, a new era
arrived. A Hindu hotel clerk in Ahmedabad said: "Now each and every Muslim
is a target."
There was rumour of trouble in Sadarpur on Friday evening. Mr Pathan says:
"We were told some people will attack.So we called the police." An officer
and five constables showed up, distributed bland assurances and went away
again.
Far from being an outburst of communal frenzy, this was a surgical strike,
carried out with military ruthlessness and discipline. All the bodies had
been removed when The Independent visited the site, but evidence of the
massacre was all around: the huge puddle in the lane, anomalous in this
parched zone; a burnt-out jeep; bags hastily half-packed for flight; and
in home after home, beds where victims had died, burnt out, nothing left
but the charred frame and a stinking black spongy mess on the floor.
Yet there was no looting here. Televisions sit untouched. Shiny galvanised
food dishes are still neatly aligned on sideboards. The murder of 28
people in Sadarpur one survivor claims the true figure is 55 followed
precise instructions.
In Sawala, where 20 survivors from Sadarpur have taken refuge, I spoke to
GM Bahelim, a teacher. about the Muslims' future. Hindus from surrounding
villages have destroyed crops in Sawala, stolen buffalo and vandalised
wells, but only two men have died. Mr Bahelim is bleak. "India is our
country, our motherland. But the BJP [the Hindu nationalists who rule both
in Gujarat and, in a coalition, at the centre] want the Muslims of India
to go to Pakistan. They don't want to give us any protection. They are
saying, 'If you want to live in India, become our serfs'."
* The Speaker of the Indian parliament's lower house, GMC Balayogi, was
killed when his helicopter crashed yesterday, after developing a technical
problem while on the way to the Andhra Pradesh state capital, Hyderabad,
police reported.
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