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Sabarmati Exp incident ...
«on:
02/28/02 at 01:14:30 » |
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So once again India is in the grip of communal tension with incidences of communal hatred filling most newspapers.
What do you think of this ? |
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who suffers??
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Re: Sabarmati Exp incident ...
«on:
03/01/02 at 07:36:25 » |
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HERE IS A ARTICLE WRITTEN IN TIMES OF INDIA , WHAT DO U PEOPLE SAY WHO IS SUFFERER ??
Mob burns to death 65 at Naroda-Patia
RADHA SHARMA & SANJAY PANDEY
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ FRIDAY, MARCH 01, 2002 5:39:21 PM ]
HMEDABAD: If it was a deadly number game that those who called for the bandh were seeking, Naroda-Patia was enough to avenge the death all that happened to the passengers of Sabarmati Express on Wednesday.
In one single act of carnage, a mob of around 5,000 persons killed nearly 65 persons in one stroke in a heart rending incident which left many, including a 20-day-old baby, gasping for life. On Thursday, if everybody was talking about the massacre in Chamanpura where nearly 38 persons were burnt alive in the Meghaninagar area, the Naroda-Patia bloodbath overshadowed all the previous gory incidents of Gujarat’s communal past. "There was a huge mob of around 5000 people who stormed our house and pulled me and my parents out. They doused us with petrol and set us ablaze...my parents are dead and see what they have done to me”, cried 15-year old Shah Jahan, a resident of Noorani Masjid in Naroda-Patia, pointing to her face that looked like a horror-mask dripping with blood.
There was a mixed population of Hindus and Muslims in Naroda-Patia area with minority community of 1,000 people residing in a slum facing the state transport worskhop. Victims said that they were targetted first on Thursday afternoon by a mob that torched the entire locality within minutes.
So far, at least 58 dead bodies have been recovered and scores admitted in the Civil Hospital with serious burn injuries. Police officials said that the death toll could reach at least 65.
Mohammad Farooq, a painter, has lost his three children and wife to the mob frenzy. He is left with three children, all admitted to hospital with serious burn injuries. "They burnt down everything. My wife is gone...I do not know whether these motherless children will be able to live or not...In one stroke, they wiped out all that I had," sobbed Farooq as he nursed his three children — Hamid (10), Ayesh (11) and Qamar (12) — all suffering from 50 to 70 per cent burns.
Most of the vicitms in the Naroda-Patia area are women and children, many of whom are struggling for life alone in the hospitals. Their relatives are either dead or injured themselves.
Police officials said that following the gory attack, around 400 people from the minority community were whisked away to safer places in the wee hours of Friday morning. A number of them have been shifted to the SRP headquarters in the vicinity.
Communal tension was palpable in the area on Friday as hundreds of youth brandishing swords, daggers, axes and iron-rods manned the roads littered with burnt vehicles. "The cowards have gone into hiding...they will dare not venture this side again," echoed the mob breaking into a thundering `Jai Shri Ram'.
Tell-tale signs of the devastation were evident at every nook and corner in the area which was still up in flames. Naroda Road, Memco crossroads, Nutan Mills, Bapunagar, Saraspur, Saijpur Bogha areas bore the burnt of rioters who gutted everything that came in their way.
Burnt remains of trucks, rickshaws, tankers, gutted shops, residential localities are aplenty on Naroda Road. At Noorni Masjid area a platoon of SRP men stand guard while all around them burnt trucks, houses, tyres and two-wheelers litter the area.
Even as the SRP constables complain about their 48-hour vigil the wind blows up ashes of a gutted. "I am here for two days now without a shave and proper food," an SRP constable complains.
But unconcerned about their police presence and curfew restrictions large hordes of people were roaming freely on Naroda Road and major thoroughfares.
Restive youths were seen carrying brandishing swords, daggers, rods in Memco road area. "Police has gained upper hand over the crowd and situation is under control," Pravin Gondia, deputy commissioner of police, said.
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Himadri
hrc
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Re: Sabarmati Exp incident ...
«on:
03/01/02 at 22:11:01 » |
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And this one is pretty nicely put by Vir Sanghvi...appeared in Hindustan Times of 28th Feb.
**********************************************
One-way ticket
Vir Sanghvi
There is something profoundly worrying in the response of what might be called the
secular establishment to the massacre in Godhra. Though there is some dispute over
the details, we now know what happened on the railway track. A mob of 2,000 people
stopped the Sabarmati Express shortly after it pulled out of Godhra station. The train
contained several bogeys full of kar sewaks who were on their way back to Ahmedabad
after participating in the Poorna Ahuti Yagya at Ayodhya.
The mob attacked the train with petrol and acid bombs. According to some witnesses,
explosives were also used. Four bogies were gutted and at least 57 people, including
over a dozen children, were burnt alive.
Some versions have it that the kar sewaks shouted anti-Muslim slogans; others that
they taunted and harassed Muslim passengers. According to these versions, the
Muslim passengers got off at Godhra and appealed to members of their community for
help. Others say that the slogans were enough to enrage the local Muslims and that
the attack was revenge.
It will be some time before we can establish the veracity of these versions, but some
things seem clear. There is no suggestion that the kar sewaks started the violence. The
worst that has been said is that they misbehaved with a few passengers. Equally, it
does seem extraordinary that slogans shouted from a moving train or at a railway
platform should have been enough to enrage local Muslims, enough for 2,000 of them
to have quickly assembled at eight in the morning, having already managed to procure
petrol bombs and acid bombs.
Even if you dispute the version of some of the kar sewaks — that the attack was
premeditated and that the mob was ready and waiting — there can be no denying that
what happened was indefensible, unforgivable and impossible to explain away as a
consequence of great provocation.
And yet, this is precisely how the secular establishment has reacted.
Nearly every non-BJP leader who appeared on TV on Wednesday and almost all of the
media have treated the massacre as a response to the Ayodhya movement. This is fair
enough in so far as the victims were kar sewaks.
But almost nobody has bothered to make the obvious follow-up point: this was not
something the kar sewaks brought on themselves. If a trainload of VHP volunteers had
been attacked while returning after the demolition of the Babri masjid in December
1992, this would still have been wrong, but at least one could have understood the
provocation.
This time, however, there has been no real provocation at all. It is possible that the
VHP may defy the government and the courts and go ahead with the temple
construction eventually. But, as of now, this has not happened. Nor has there been any
real confrontation at Ayodhya — as yet.
And yet, the sub-text to all secular commentary is the same: the kar sewaks had it
coming to them.
Basically, they condemn the crime; but blame the victims.
Try and take the incident out of the secular construct that we, in India, have perfected
and see how bizarre such an attitude sounds in other contexts. Did we say that New
York had it coming when the Twin Towers were attacked last year? Then too, there was
enormous resentment among fundamentalist Muslims about America’s policies, but we
didn’t even consider whether this resentment was justified or not.
Instead we took the line that all sensible people must take: any massacre is bad and
deserves to be condemned.
When Graham Staines and his children were burnt alive, did we say that Christian
missionaries had made themselves unpopular by engaging in conversion and so, they
had it coming? No, of course, we didn’t.
Why then are these poor kar sewaks an exception? Why have we de-humanised them
to the extent that we don’t even see the incident as the human tragedy that it
undoubtedly was and treat it as just another consequence of the VHP’s fundamentalist
policies?
The answer, I suspect, is that we are programmed to see Hindu-Muslim relations in
simplistic terms: Hindus provoke, Muslims suffer.
When this formula does not work —- it is clear now that a well-armed Muslim mob
murdered unarmed Hindus — we simply do not know how to cope. We shy away from
the truth — that some Muslims committed an act that is indefensible — and resort to
blaming the victims.
Of course, there are always ‘rational reasons’ offered for this stand. Muslims are in a
minority and therefore, they deserve special consideration. Muslims already face
discrimination so why make it harder for them? If you report the truth then you will
inflame Hindu sentiments and this would be irresponsible. And so on.
I know the arguments well because — like most journalists — I have used them
myself. And I still argue that they are often valid and necessary.
But there comes a time when this kind of rigidly ‘secularist’ construct not only goes too
far; it also becomes counter-productive. When everybody can see that a trainload of
Hindus was massacred by a Muslim mob, you gain nothing by blaming the murders on
the VHP or arguing that the dead men and women had it coming to them.
Not only does this insult the dead (What about the children? Did they also have it
coming?), but it also insults the intelligence of the reader. Even moderate Hindus, of
the sort that loathe the VHP, are appalled by the stories that are now coming out of
Gujarat: stories with uncomfortable reminders of 1947 with details about how the
bogies were first locked from outside and then set on fire and how the women’s
compartment suffered the most damage.
Any media — indeed, any secular establishment — that fails to take into account the
genuine concerns of people risks losing its own credibility. Something like that
happened in the mid-Eighties when an aggressive hard secularism on the part of the
press and government led even moderate Hindus to believe that they had become
second class citizens in their own country. It was this Hindu backlash that brought the
Ayodhya movement — till then a fringe activity — to the forefront and fuelled the rise
of L.K. Advani’s BJP.
My fear is that something similar will happen once again. The VHP will ask the obvious
question of Hindus: why is it a tragedy when Staines is burnt alive and merely an
‘inevitable political development’ when the same fate befalls 57 kar sewaks?
Because, as secularists, we can provide no good answer, it is the VHP’s responses that
will be believed. Once again, Hindus will believe that their suffering is of no
consequence and will be tempted to see the building of a temple at Ayodhya as an
expression of Hindu pride in the face of secular indifference.
But even if this were not to happen, even if there was no danger of a Hindu backlash, I
still think that the secular establishment should pause for thought.
There is one question we need to ask ourselves: have we become such prisoners of
our own rhetoric that even a horrific massacre becomes nothing more than occasion for
Sangh parivar-bashing?
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true Indian
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Re: Sabarmati Exp incident ...
«on:
03/12/02 at 23:01:28 » |
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Whatever happened in Sabarmati Express resembles that during Independence.When trains coming
from Pakistan were burned .But it is strange that Muslims dare to do such thing in India.It is
only because they are pampered too much by our power hungry politicians.
What I fell is that the entire Muslim Locality of Godhra from where the mobs came should be burned down.
Then only they wont dare do such things in future anywhere
in India.Because every one is concerned about the riots but not about the train burning incident.
If the helpless Hindus dont take terrific revenge ,then such train burning incidents by Muslims will become common.
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Bonojit
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Re: Sabarmati Exp incident ...
«on:
03/24/02 at 08:23:46 » |
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Dear True Indian,
By the citing the example of train coming from Pakistan in 1947 being burnt, and raising the question how a train carrying karsevak was alledgedly burnt in indian by Muslims, you are already falling into the trap of sectarian politics. If somebody in this country or for that matter in this world justifies the carnage of Godhra,there is no doubt that he is as coward as the mob which did it. I condemn it. But at the same Godhra carage cann't be the basis of a justification for another carnage to killed thousands of other. You cann't make human life turn into investment (of extreme nationalism) like a bussiness house making investment to create more capital.And again those who executed the Godhra carnage and Ahmadabad genocide are not representative of hindus and muslims, they are plain and simple lumpen criminals. |
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Allah din
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Re: Sabarmati Exp incident ...
«on:
03/26/02 at 07:56:00 » |
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Whatever happened in Godhra is unforgivable,what if it would
have Happened in Pakistan,imagine the response.
I think we Muslims should understand the sentiments of Majority Hindus who are very Tolerable by nature and behave accordingly.I have seen a marked change in the attitude of my Hindu friends after the Godhra carnage.These people who did the Godhra carnage has spoiled the image of all Muslims as a community.
:'( |
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well said
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Re: Sabarmati Exp incident ...
«on:
03/28/02 at 13:53:06 » |
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[quote author=Allah din link=board=0011&num=1014880470&start=0#5 date=03/26/02 at 07:56:00]
Whatever happened in Godhra is unforgivable,what if it would
have Happened in Pakistan,imagine the response.
I think we Muslims should understand the sentiments of Majority Hindus who are very Tolerable by nature and behave accordingly.I have seen a marked change in the attitude of my Hindu friends after the Godhra carnage.These people who did the Godhra carnage has spoiled the image of all Muslims as a community.
:'(
[/quote]
thats right...after all, a little tolerance on the part of the muslims this time, might change many things in future. |
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