| Riots were Planned: UK Mission |
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| http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/150402/detfro03.asp Saurabh Shukla (New Delhi, April 14) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The British High Commission in the Capital has reported to the British Foreign Office in London that the continuing violence in Gujarat is aimed at removing Muslim influence from parts of the state. Significantly, the report, prepared by three British diplomats who recently toured the affected areas, placed the death toll at around 2,000. The figure � arrived at from information shared by civil rights groups, victim families and state police officials � is more than double the official death toll of 850. In terms of India's international image, the report does the most damage by stating that the post-Godhra violence in Gujarat was pre-planned. If the Sabarmati Express tragedy hadn't happened, another flashpoint would have been created to justify pre-meditated violence as reaction, the report says. And all this, according to the report, will affect foreign investment in India. The number of people rendered homeless has been reported as 1,40,000 (1,00,000 Muslims and 40,000 Hindus). Conditions in relief camps, the report says, are miserable. Extremely critical of the Sangh Parivar's role, the report identifies the VHP and Bajrang Dal as the main instruments for realising the ghettoisation of the Muslims. The High Commission's team to Gujarat was led by Peter Holland, First Secretary in the Mission's Political Section. They were assigned the fact-finding task after a British national of Indian origin was burned to death, and two of his family went missing. The report was sent to the British Foreign Office in London on Friday. Though there is no official word on the report from the UK mission, sources said that it endorsed broadly the media reports on the carnage while noting that the state bureaucracy was now busy covering up its acts of omission. The team also observed that in some areas, the police had been specifically instructed not to act, while in some others, the force was communally polarised and looked the other way without any prompting by political bosses. The report also questions the discrimination between the amount paid as compensation to victims/ next of kin of the Godhra tragedy and the subsequent riots. It also says that minority establishments and property were specially targeted by the rioting mobs in most places. |