05-21-2005, 12:59 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pradeepsingh B. Thakur, who drives the city's only fire engine, said he roared toward the train station by 8:20, only to be waved down by Bilal Haji, a member of the town council. Mr. Thakur pulled over, figuring that the elected official was going to give him directions. Instead, Mr. Haji signaled the crowd to begin stoning the fire truck, then raced off on his motorcycle, the firefighter said.
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From NY Times article (Need subscription so pasting in full)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->GODHRA, India, March 5 â While the nation's attention has been riveted on the deadliest Hindu-Muslim riots India has seen in almost a decade, investigators here have been trying to fathom the unspeakable crime that ignited them.
Last Wednesday morning a train loaded with Hindu activists coasted into the densely populated heart of a poor, tough Muslim neighborhood here. Minutes later, a Muslim mob materialized from the ether and descended on it. The mob sent Coach S- 6 up in flames, and with it cities, towns and villages across the western state of Gujarat.
Fifty-eight people â mostly Hindu women and children â were burned alive here in a matter of minutes, while 519 people, mostly Muslims, have been burned, stabbed, beaten and otherwise killed in the vengeful bloodletting that has followed.
A week later, this city of 120,000 is under a curfew so complete it has left hardly more than policemen slouching languorously in lawn chairs and goats, pigs, dogs and cows on the streets.
There are still many unanswered questions. Was there an altercation on the platform that sparked the rage of the Muslims? Was the attack planned or spontaneous? Was India's favorite nemesis, Pakistan's military intelligence agency, pulling the rioters' strings?
The Muslim mayor of Godhra and two Muslim city council members have been arrested in connection with the train attack, as have 38 Muslims who lived along the railway tracks, officials here say. The officials could not be reached for comment because they are in police custody.
In Ahmedabad, another city here in the western state of Gujarat, the police are said to have filed reports accusing local Hindu politicians and leaders of the World Hindu Council â the group that rolled into town last week â of encouraging the attacks against Muslims that followed.
However unclear the particulars of what happened in Godhra remain, the context for the crime is etched in this small city's history.
In a predominantly Hindu country where Muslims are a minority of about 12 percent of the population, Godhra is almost evenly divided between Hindus and Muslims.
It patently lacks the kind of social, civic and workplace integration that blesses more peaceful cities, says Asutosh Varshney, a political scientist who has studied both India's riot- prone and harmonious cities in his book, "Ethnic Conflict and Civil Life" (Yale University Press, 2002).
Rioting is a habit that Godhra has been practicing for more than half a century. The clashes began around the time known as partition, when India and overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan were carved from the British Empire in 1947.
A legendary episode came in the early 1980's when the district administrator imposed a day-and-night curfew that lasted six months. The violence reignited in 1992 when Hindu fanatics, including many from the World Hindu Council, tore down a northern Indian mosque with their bare hands, crowbars and other implements.
Today, the mutual contempt and mistrust with which Hindus and Muslims regard each other here is remarkable for its openness.
Gopalsinh G. Solanki is a member of Parliament from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party that governs this state and leads the government at the national level. Without self-consciousness, Mr. Solanki, a prosperous lawyer, described the Muslims of his city as pro-Pakistani people who do little work except to steal.
Gujarat borders the Pakistani province of Sindh and Mr. Solanki asserted that "ladies and gents" from the Muslim community here marry Pakistanis, establishing a linkage that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency can exploit.
"Many people are spies," he said.
Senior leaders of the national government from his party said the possibility of a link to Pakistani or outside groups was being investigated.
But for the poor people of the Signal locality that stretches along the railway tracks, the trouble was caused by the great, oppressive "they" â the Hindus on the train and the Hindus in their town.
"They created some trouble, then arrested all Muslim leaders to break the back of Muslims, to make Muslims slaves," said Mohammad Salim, a truck driver, as dusk fell and swarms of mosquitoes rose from fetid puddles of still water in the muddy courtyard. "They themselves burned the bogies," meaning the train cars.
The fateful events of Wednesday morning unfolded in the span of 15 minutes. The Sabarmati Express pulled into Godhra station at 7:43 a.m., according to the station superintendent, Jaisinh Katija.
Most people agree that some scuffle ensued in the five minutes the train paused at the station. It was probably between the Muslim tea and pakora vendors and Hindu activists who had just returned from the northern Indian town where the World Hindu Council is trying to build a temple on the site of the 16th century mosque razed in 1992.
Rajendrasinh Patel, a state assemblyman from the Congress Party, said a witness told him that a worker from the World Hindu Council, known for its virulent anti-Muslim rhetoric, demanded that a tea vendor say, "Jai Shri Ram" â or "Victory to Ram" â the incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu â before the Hindu would pay him.
There are dozens of Muslim tea and snack vendors who work the platform and the trains â and they may have helped rouse a mob to avenge the insult, some officials say.
Seventeen minutes after the train arrived at the station â and after someone twice pulled a chain to stop the train as it eased away from the platform â a mob variously estimated at 500 to 2,000 people engulfed the train, stoning and burning it.
Pradeepsingh B. Thakur, who drives the city's only fire engine, said he roared toward the train station by 8:20, only to be waved down by Bilal Haji, a member of the town council. Mr. Thakur pulled over, figuring that the elected official was going to give him directions. Instead, Mr. Haji signaled the crowd to begin stoning the fire truck, then raced off on his motorcycle, the firefighter said.
"I was delayed 8 to 10 minutes because of the crowd," Mr. Thakur said.
Jayanti Ravi, a decisive, commanding district administrator who wears a thick braid down her back, was the first to enter the still smoldering coach.
Determined not to give in to emotion, she was nonetheless moved by the horror of what she witnessed.
The fire must have been most intense on the sides of the sleeper car.
"There was a heap of bodies in the middle," she said. "People ran to the middle to save themselves. There on the top was what must have been a lady with an infant sheltered in her hands. I saw skulls black and charred."
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From NY Times article (Need subscription so pasting in full)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->GODHRA, India, March 5 â While the nation's attention has been riveted on the deadliest Hindu-Muslim riots India has seen in almost a decade, investigators here have been trying to fathom the unspeakable crime that ignited them.
Last Wednesday morning a train loaded with Hindu activists coasted into the densely populated heart of a poor, tough Muslim neighborhood here. Minutes later, a Muslim mob materialized from the ether and descended on it. The mob sent Coach S- 6 up in flames, and with it cities, towns and villages across the western state of Gujarat.
Fifty-eight people â mostly Hindu women and children â were burned alive here in a matter of minutes, while 519 people, mostly Muslims, have been burned, stabbed, beaten and otherwise killed in the vengeful bloodletting that has followed.
A week later, this city of 120,000 is under a curfew so complete it has left hardly more than policemen slouching languorously in lawn chairs and goats, pigs, dogs and cows on the streets.
There are still many unanswered questions. Was there an altercation on the platform that sparked the rage of the Muslims? Was the attack planned or spontaneous? Was India's favorite nemesis, Pakistan's military intelligence agency, pulling the rioters' strings?
The Muslim mayor of Godhra and two Muslim city council members have been arrested in connection with the train attack, as have 38 Muslims who lived along the railway tracks, officials here say. The officials could not be reached for comment because they are in police custody.
In Ahmedabad, another city here in the western state of Gujarat, the police are said to have filed reports accusing local Hindu politicians and leaders of the World Hindu Council â the group that rolled into town last week â of encouraging the attacks against Muslims that followed.
However unclear the particulars of what happened in Godhra remain, the context for the crime is etched in this small city's history.
In a predominantly Hindu country where Muslims are a minority of about 12 percent of the population, Godhra is almost evenly divided between Hindus and Muslims.
It patently lacks the kind of social, civic and workplace integration that blesses more peaceful cities, says Asutosh Varshney, a political scientist who has studied both India's riot- prone and harmonious cities in his book, "Ethnic Conflict and Civil Life" (Yale University Press, 2002).
Rioting is a habit that Godhra has been practicing for more than half a century. The clashes began around the time known as partition, when India and overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan were carved from the British Empire in 1947.
A legendary episode came in the early 1980's when the district administrator imposed a day-and-night curfew that lasted six months. The violence reignited in 1992 when Hindu fanatics, including many from the World Hindu Council, tore down a northern Indian mosque with their bare hands, crowbars and other implements.
Today, the mutual contempt and mistrust with which Hindus and Muslims regard each other here is remarkable for its openness.
Gopalsinh G. Solanki is a member of Parliament from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party that governs this state and leads the government at the national level. Without self-consciousness, Mr. Solanki, a prosperous lawyer, described the Muslims of his city as pro-Pakistani people who do little work except to steal.
Gujarat borders the Pakistani province of Sindh and Mr. Solanki asserted that "ladies and gents" from the Muslim community here marry Pakistanis, establishing a linkage that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency can exploit.
"Many people are spies," he said.
Senior leaders of the national government from his party said the possibility of a link to Pakistani or outside groups was being investigated.
But for the poor people of the Signal locality that stretches along the railway tracks, the trouble was caused by the great, oppressive "they" â the Hindus on the train and the Hindus in their town.
"They created some trouble, then arrested all Muslim leaders to break the back of Muslims, to make Muslims slaves," said Mohammad Salim, a truck driver, as dusk fell and swarms of mosquitoes rose from fetid puddles of still water in the muddy courtyard. "They themselves burned the bogies," meaning the train cars.
The fateful events of Wednesday morning unfolded in the span of 15 minutes. The Sabarmati Express pulled into Godhra station at 7:43 a.m., according to the station superintendent, Jaisinh Katija.
Most people agree that some scuffle ensued in the five minutes the train paused at the station. It was probably between the Muslim tea and pakora vendors and Hindu activists who had just returned from the northern Indian town where the World Hindu Council is trying to build a temple on the site of the 16th century mosque razed in 1992.
Rajendrasinh Patel, a state assemblyman from the Congress Party, said a witness told him that a worker from the World Hindu Council, known for its virulent anti-Muslim rhetoric, demanded that a tea vendor say, "Jai Shri Ram" â or "Victory to Ram" â the incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu â before the Hindu would pay him.
There are dozens of Muslim tea and snack vendors who work the platform and the trains â and they may have helped rouse a mob to avenge the insult, some officials say.
Seventeen minutes after the train arrived at the station â and after someone twice pulled a chain to stop the train as it eased away from the platform â a mob variously estimated at 500 to 2,000 people engulfed the train, stoning and burning it.
Pradeepsingh B. Thakur, who drives the city's only fire engine, said he roared toward the train station by 8:20, only to be waved down by Bilal Haji, a member of the town council. Mr. Thakur pulled over, figuring that the elected official was going to give him directions. Instead, Mr. Haji signaled the crowd to begin stoning the fire truck, then raced off on his motorcycle, the firefighter said.
"I was delayed 8 to 10 minutes because of the crowd," Mr. Thakur said.
Jayanti Ravi, a decisive, commanding district administrator who wears a thick braid down her back, was the first to enter the still smoldering coach.
Determined not to give in to emotion, she was nonetheless moved by the horror of what she witnessed.
The fire must have been most intense on the sides of the sleeper car.
"There was a heap of bodies in the middle," she said. "People ran to the middle to save themselves. There on the top was what must have been a lady with an infant sheltered in her hands. I saw skulls black and charred."
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