NEWS HEADLINES

Troops pulled out of Gujarat, MiGs cleared for takeoff
Express News Service.

http://www.indian-express.com/full_story.php?content_id=3137

New Delhi, May 21: The army has withdrawn leave of its
soldiers and recalled them for active duty in the wake
of increasing tension between India and Pakistan.
Troops have also been withdrawn from internal security
duties in Gujarat and sent to the border areas.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has cleared the entire
MiG-21 Bis fleet for flying after detailed checks.
Defence Minister George Fernandes, accompanied by the
chiefs of the Army and Air Force, watched a massive
fire power demonstration at the Mahajan field firing
range ahead of Bikaner in Rajasthan today.

‘‘The joint army and air force exercise focuses on
synergised operations to penetrate into enemy
territory and destroy ground-based defences for the
army to attack. The air force is also training to
provide air support to the army and sanitise the air
space,’’ said an official.

Colonel Shruti Kant, an army spokesman, added: ‘‘The
army formations and units, earlier diverted from
Operation Parakram for internal security duties in
Gujarat, have been relieved of these duties post haste
and have started moving to their operational
locations. Such a move has been undertaken keeping in
view the emerging security scenario after the attack
at Kaluchak.’’

© 2002: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All
rights reserved throughout the world.

The face behind Gujarat’s foetus headline
Indian Express.

Father of Kausar Bano says they should have taken me
and let her first child be born
Mukta Chakravorty

http://www.indian-express.com/full_story.php?content_id=3188

Ahmedabad, May 22: To put a face to the brutal story
of Kausar Bano is to give a voice to her 70-year-old
father. Mercifully, Khaliq Noor Mohammad Sheikh didn’t
see the mobs slitting Kausar’s womb with a sword,
dragging out the unborn child that nestled within her
and burning both in Naroda Patiya on February 28. He
had fainted — when he woke up, he couldn’t even find
the charred remains of Kausar Bano and her unborn
child.

‘‘I found out how my daughter and her baby had been
killed after I went to the Shah Alam relief camp. They
could have killed me and spared my pregnant
daughter,’’ sobs Sheikh. ‘‘My daughter got married
only last year. This would have been her first child.
And they did not even allow it to come into this
world.’’

Khaliq Shaikh, father of Kausar Bano (inset)

Sheikh was a paint contractor who earned around Rs
4,000 a month. Until February 28, he had two houses in
Naroda Patiya. He had two children: Kausar, in her
early thirties, and a younger married son.

Kausar’s was a love marriage. She and her unemployed
husband, Shahid Sheikh, stayed with her father. Shahid
is said to be alive, but nobody at Shah Alam knows his
whereabouts.

Sheikh’s neighbours, who are also at the relief camp,
remember Kausar as a quiet person, who ‘‘would speak
only when spoken to’’. ‘‘She wasn’t educated, but she
had learnt diamond-cutting and polishing. She didn’t
work, though,’’ says her father. His son Sharmuddin,
his wife and two children lived with Sheikh. ‘‘We were
a 12-member joint family. My wife’s sister and her
family of four also stayed with us,’’ he says. Only
three of the 12 — Sheikh, his son-in-law and his
wife’s sister’s son — survived.

A day before the massacre, Sheikh says he took Kausar
to a hospital in Kalupur for a medical check-up. ‘‘She
was complaining of pain. The doctor said she was
likely to deliver in a day or two.’’

On February 28, Sheikh was leaving for work when he
heard loud shouts outside. ‘‘We all tried to flee. The
mob hit me with sticks and tried to douse me with
petrol. I managed to escape and reach a nearby dhaba,
where I lost consciousness. When I regained
consciousness after 28 hours, I went back to see only
ruins. Some policemen escorted me to a nearby chawl,
from where I was brought to the relief camp.’’
Reshmabano Nadibbhai Sayed, one of Sheikh’s
neighbours, says, ‘‘Ever since chacha heard about the
gory killing, he has turned insane with grief.’’
Reshmabano says she witnessed Kausar’s killing. ‘‘As
Kausar was being dragged out of her home, she kept
screaming, pleading with the mob to take away her
money, her valuables, but spare her and her unborn
child. But they pulled out the baby and threw it into
the fire along with Kausar’s body. When her mother
tried to intervene, she was burnt as well. When an old
man hears all this, won’t he be affected?’’

Sheikh says he will never return to Naroda Patiya.‘‘I
will go back to Bangalore, where my mother-in-law
lives. My life is over, but I want to see the
murderers of my daughter brought to book before I
die,’’ he says.

© 2002: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All
rights reserved throughout the world.

Bengali Muslims in no-man's land
By Moazzem Hossain
In south-west Bangladesh

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_2005000/2005318.stm

Nearly 200 Bengali-speaking Muslims, who fled riots in
the Indian city of Ahmedabad, have turned up in
south-west Bangladesh.

I saw people being killed in front of me

Nasima
They are waiting in villages near Narail to be
recognised by the government as Bangladeshi citizens.

The refugees claim they were originally from
Bangladesh and went to Ahmedabad to escape extreme
poverty at home.

Government officials say they need to verify the
identities of the refugees before accepting their
claim of citizenship.

Muslims in Ahmedabad have lost everything

Bishnupur is a quiet village about 2,000 kilometres
(1250 miles) away from Ahmedabad.

But strangely enough, many families in this remote
village had relations who had lived and worked there
for decades.

Perhaps nobody would have known that so many
Bangladeshis from this village had gone to Gujarat as
economic migrants unless communal violence had forced
them back home.

Poverty trap

The first small batch of riot victims turned up in
Bishnupur largely unnoticed.

But as communal violence continued in Gujarat, more
groups of men, women and children began to arrive, and
the local officials and media could no longer ignore
them.

It was poverty, extreme poverty that forced us to
leave the country

Nasima
So far the local administration has identified 93
people who claim to be Gujarat riot victims.

But officials believe the number of refugees could be
higher, as more refugees in several other villages are
yet to be identified and listed.

Nasima, a mother of five, told how she had ended up in
Ahmedabad nearly five years ago after leaving her
village in Bangladesh.

" It was poverty, extreme poverty that forced us to
leave the country," she told the BBC.

"My husband could not earn bread for the family. One
day we decided to cross the border to India with the
hope of finding a job.

"We went to Ahmedabad, where many people from our
village had already migrated."

Attacked

Nasima and her husband worked as vegetable vendors in
Ahmedabad.

They lived in a slum near the Shah Alam Dorgah, a
shrine of a Muslim saint.

Nasima: House set alight

"During the riots, a group of men attacked our house
and set fire to it.

"We took shelter in the compound of the Shah Alam
Dorgah."

Nasima said: "I saw people being killed in front of
me. At least two Bangladeshis were killed in the riot,
who I knew personally."

As the communal violence spiralled out of control,
they finally decided to return home.

They travelled for six days, in trains and buses, and
ended up in Bishnupur, which they say is their home
village.

Red tape

In Bishnupur many villagers identified Nasima as their
neighbour, and provided her family with food and
shelter.

However, the government is still reluctant to
recognise the refugees as Bangladeshi nationals.

Ahsan Habib, an official of the local administration,
said: "We have to verify the claims by the refugees.

"We need to check the voters' list and see if they had
paid any council tax when they were here. These things
require time."

Many people believe the apparent reluctance to
recognise the refugees as Bangladeshis is because it
may lend credence to Indian claims that many
Bangladeshi immigrants work illegally in Indian
cities.

Charge sheet filed against 66 accused for Godhra
mayhem
rediff.com,
May 22, 2002.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/may/23train.htm

Nearly three months after the Godhra carnage, railway
police has filed charge sheets against 66 accused.

Police sources said on Thursday that the 500-page
charge sheet was filed on Wednesday in the court of
first class railway magistrate P K Joshi.

The FIR had alleged that a 1540-strong minority mob
attacked the Sabarmati Express in Signal Falia area on
February 27, minutes after the delayed train left the
Godhra station.

Fifty-eight people, mostly karsewaks returning from
Ayodhya were killed.

The incident precipitated large-scale violence with
hundreds of minority people killed and thousands
rendered homeless in Ahmedabad and other parts of
north Gujarat.

The chargesheeted include prime accused Haji Bilal, a
municipal corporator. Bilal along with president of
Godhra municipality Mohammed Hussain Kalota was
arrested in March.

Others arrested include corporator Abdul Razak and
Shiraj Abdul Jamesha.

(c) 2002 rediff.com.

Majority of Ahmedabad violence victims discharged from
hospital
Thursday May 23, 8:55 AM

http://in.news.yahoo.com/020523/20/1opcw.html

Ahmedabad, May 22 (PTI) A majority of violence
victims, who were undergoing treatment at the Civil
Hospital here for various injuries suffered by them
during the communal riots in the city, have been
discharged.

A total of 245 violence victims were admitted to the
hospital while 194 were treated as outdoor patients,
official sources said.

Post-mortems were conducted on as many as 309 bodies
at the hospital, they added.

Meanwhile, the Health Department today expedited the
work regarding distribution of disability certificates
to those injured in the violence.

So far 367 disability certificates have been given to
inmates of two relief camps of the city, they added.

Doctors at the Civil Hospital worked round to clock to
treat the violence victims while the medical staff
worked continously for 48 hours to provide treatment
to the patients.

Since many bodies were in bad shape and emitted foul
smell, the doctors conducting post-mortems also had a
hectic schedule that had its reflection in her health
condition, hospital sources said.

Copyright © 2002 Press Trust of India Ltd. All rights
reserved.
Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Minorities appreciate 'compulsion' of border, but fear
remains
Yahoo News.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/020522/20/1onr6.html

Ahmedabad, May 22 (PTI) The leaders of battered
minority community today appreciated the government's
'compulsions' in withdrawing army from
violence-ravaged Gujarat, though a large number of
inmates and relief workers in make-shift camps say the
action could dampen the confidence of the people.

'Army withdrawal may not have any adverse affect ...
even otherwise their hands were tied. It is for local
police to deliver goods,' Maulvi Shabir Siddiqqui,
Imam of city-based Jama Masjid, told PTI here.

He said with the arrival of Super Cop KPS Gill 'things
have moved in right direction and there have been no
incident during last one week'.

'I don't deny there is still fear psychosis but police
is giving us all assurance,' he said adding police
Commissioner K R Kaushik yesterday assured a minority
delegation that adequate steps were being taken to
instil confidence.

Agreeing with Maulvi, Shakeel Ahmed of Sarvajanik
Relief Committee said there is an improved policing
during last one week and so 'withdrawal of army will
not have any adverse effect as long as CRPF and other
forces were present'.

However, for relief workers and inmates in relief
camps the general refrain is 'we understand the
compulsion, but it is ill-timed as confidence building
measures had just started showing results'.

'The fear psychosis has dawned on people's mind
again,' cautions Lalabhai, the coordinator with
Bakarshaka Roza camp at riot-hit Gomtipur.

'Desh ki majboori hum samajhte hain .... lekin dar bhi
hae (We understand the compulsion to guard the borders
but the fear psychosis prevails),' said Lalabhai.

Another relief worker, Ataullah Khan Pathan,
coodinator with Dariyakhan Ghummat relief camp,
endorses Lalabhai's opinion saying 'we understand the
issue of national security, but there is also
something called internal security.

'Somehow, people still do not have enough faith in
local police,' he said.

Several inmates in camps also echoe similar
sentiments.

In fact, some inmates in Dariyakhan camp proposing to
move out from the shelter have 'postponed' their
decision by a day or two.

'Let us apply the old theory of wait and watch,' said
one 55-year old woman inmate, whose sister's family
members have moved to Mahakali Mandir area during last
one week.

'I may not like to admit it, but the withdrawal
process (of army) has brought back tension in our
mind, who knows what could happen tomorrow,' said
Pathan.

However, among the minorities including relief camp
inmates, the general feeling is that Gill's arrival
has brought a 'sea change' in policing and the 'good
work' should continue unhindered.

'Bahut fark pada hai (There is a tremendous positive
effect on Gill's arrival),' said Lalabhai.

Attaullah Pathan said that for the Super Cop the
'challenge will be greater now'.

'He has to improve policing and also check the rumour
mill that has gained momentum with the withdrawal of
the army,' he said.

Copyright © 2002 Press Trust of India Ltd. All rights
reserved.
Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.