People's Democracy

THIS is the area where a big crowd of Muslims first burnt Friends Company, a shop owned by Shri Ganesh Dubey who also happens to be a local Congress leader. We met his son, Pushkar Dubey. He said when he heard that a big crowd was coming to that area, he locked his shop and went inside. He said that he and his family had taken shelter, in the first instance, with a Muslim family. The family stayed there for a few hours and then the police took them away. We found that in the same building in which the burnt-down shop was located, several Hindu and Muslim families were living together. We met some women like Indira Singh, Rani Gupta and Sudha Tandon. They introduced us to Anees Khatoon who had given shelter to the Dubeys. Anees also said that all the people in the crowd were from outside. She said that it was only natural for her to give shelter to the Dubeys: "I did not think of it twice. They have been our neighbours for years."

Later we were told that there is a property dispute between Dubey and the building’s owner who wants to get the Dubeys out. Most of the hatas (old style market complexes) in this area have changed hands over the last few years and Hindu families have sold their property. There were no other shops burnt in the immediate area although the nearby hotel had been stoned by the same crowd. The question arises: Whether the burning of the particular shop had something to do with the property dispute?

The crowd also broke a mathia (small temple). They then went inside the area and dispersed.

Incidents occurred around the same time in the afternoon of the 16th. Here it was a different crowd from the Nai Sarak, which came into the area. Choubey Gola is a small Hindu pocket of five families surrounded by Muslim families. There is a cluster of four temples in the area. All were damaged. In one of the temples called Bandukeshwar, a small statue of Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, the great freedom fighter martyred in 1931, was also damaged. A shop called Sandeep Arts, which was a small signboard shop, was gutted by the crowd. The plastic from the shop was taken to the temple and was used to burn it. We met Sandeep Srivastava, the owner. He said he heard that a crowd was coming and so he locked the shop and went to his house a few yards away. We also met Rakesh Kumar Sahu and his wife. Rakesh alias Buddhu sells vegetables in a cart. Not only was his cart burnt; his entire house was totally gutted. He has now nothing to call his own. We met the residents of the area such as Ramesh Chand Gupta, Shyam Sundar, Pappoo and Om Prakash Shukla. They said it was only because of their Muslim neighbours that they were safe. We met all of them. One Taj Mohammed, a brave young man, stood in front of the temple trying to prevent it from being burnt and got injured in the process. Riaz Ahmed alias Laddan also tried to save the temple as well as the Hindus. Hafiz Mohammed Umar Malik alias Munshiji gave shelter to the Hindu families in his house. All the Hindus said they had called the police several times. The area is very close to the Kotwali but no police force came. If it had not been for our neighbours we do not know what would have happened, they said. We could not meet any other Hindu woman, as mostly they had left the area.

Across the road at the end of Nai Sarak is a Chandreshwar Hata, known to be a stronghold of the Bajrang Dal. As soon as the news of the Choubey Gola incidents spread in this locality, Bajrang Dal led a group along with the police to attack the Muslims in Nai Sarak. This was video- filmed and shown by a local TV channel called "Latest Coverage." While the police was mounting an operation to control the crowd, the active participation of the Bajrang Dal with their clearly communal agenda made the situation even more tense. When this was shown on TV, it had a most inflammatory effect as it showed the partisanship and communal bias of the force. How could the Muslim community have any confidence in a force which was acting in this way?

We went to the area where the ADM, Shri C P Pathak, was shot dead at around 5 p m on the 16th. The shots came from a building on the Nai Sarak side. He was shot just outside Choubey Gola, about fifty yards to the left. The public around the area told us that the ADM was shot dead in the police cross-firing. About an hour later, three Muslim tailoring shops were burnt down and looted in the Hindu-majority ‘P’ Road area where Shri Pathak lived, when the news of his death reached there.

It is shocking that it took the administration, the then DM and SSP over three hours to reach the hospital where Pathak’s body had been taken. It is also shameful that the then DM made a statement saying that the ADM had not been posted at the spot, as though the administration had had no responsibility. We tried to meet the family but were unable to do so as they were not receiving the visitors.

After this incident, offensive was taken by the PAC, a section of the police and the communal forces which were organised by the RSS. It was a no-holds-barred attack on the minority community by the state and by the RSS outfits enjoying state patronage.

At the poultry market, which had been completely looted by the PAC and the police on the 16th night, we were surrounded by hundreds of women and men. They were in a state of desperation, shock and despair. Iqbal Ahmed, secretary of the poultry market association, stated that all the shops had suffered severe damages and goods worth Rs 20--25 lakh had been looted by the PAC. It is most amazing that this loot was done during the curfew. There is no doubt that the looters were men in uniform. This is a Muslim-majority area and no one was out during the curfew except the police. Such was the damage that the small shopkeepers have no resources to rebuild their lives even five days after the incident. The women we met in this area were crying. They said that they had been ruined. Their entire savings had been wiped out as even cash had been looted from the shops. Shockingly, to date there has been no survey conducted by the administration about the havoc wreaked in the area.

During the course of the day in the Hindu-majority areas, there were continuing attacks on the shops owned by Muslims and on masjids (mosques). These were carried out by RSS outfits, often in connivance with sections of the police. The areas so attacked are Chowk Sarafa, Hatia, Sirki Mohal. In Shivala, one of the worst incidents took place. A whole row of bangles shops, owned mainly by Muslims, was burnt down. The Chappal Market was also burnt down and the masjid located next to it was attacked. Here also it was some local Hindus who defended the masjid, just as the Muslims had defended the mandirs (temples). We met several Muslim and some Hindu shopkeepers in the area. In the late evening, the Takia Park area was also attacked and four shops belonging to Muslims were burnt down. The attackers tried to attack the masjid but the police and administration intervened.

Next, we went to the Baconganj area. This is one of the worst affected areas because of the criminal attacks by the police. On the main road we went to a medical shop. We met a young woman Mariam Uruj, daughter of the owner Mr Pintoo. There were several women in the crowd who were residents of the area. They all said that Pintoo had always worked for communal harmony. The police had asked for his help on numerous occasions to diffuse tension. Mariam said that on March 18 morning, the PAC men came, broke into the shop and smashed a number of medicine bottles. The savagery of the force can be understood from this incident. What could they gain from breaking into a medical shop except preventing the local population’s access to medicines? She said that medicines worth approximately Rs 2 lakh had been destroyed. Weeping, she asked: "If we who have always fought for communal harmony been victimised by the police in this way, what is the message which will go to others?" She said she saw senior police officers down the road and called out to them from the window. This was confirmed later by the IG and the police commissioner. After she called, they intervened and recovered some of the looted medicines and other goods including chickens, dry fruit, etc, from a PAC van.

At Baconganj we heard everyone bitterly complaining about the vicious role played by SO, Mohan Varma. Evidently, it was he who ordered the PAC Battalion 33 to loot the shops. We saw many bullet marks on the shutters and walls of houses and shops around the thana (police station), including the residence of Mr Riaz Hussain Naqvi, a retired home guard officer. We met a number of the women residents of these houses. Among them was Najma. Her house is exactly opposite the thana. She had got up early in the morning to the sound of police firing from the thana. As he went to shut the windows a bullet was fired straight at her. She ducked her head and the bullet grazed her neck. She showed us the wound. We also picked up several spent bullets from the house and later showed them to the officials when we met them. There were many women in the area who had similar experiences during the police firing. These women were all weeping when we met them. They related their terror, their continuing fear, and the difficulties to get food. This created the worst kind of terror among the residents. In the same area, a resident, Mansur, complained that the PAC had entered the houses to loot and had threatened the women that if they resist they would come at night and settle the score. We also heard that one Ram Avtar killed a 12 years old boy.

At the Readymade Market, we saw the pathetic ruins of 36 shops which had been burnt, including Diamond Lace owned by Haji Mansoor Ilahi and Haseen Silk House owned by Mohd Haseen. The police claimed that the fire here had been started by a short circuit. This seemed highly unlikely as the shops were burnt on both sides of the road. In this area a large number of kirana and grocery shops were also looted. We met some of the owners like Karimbaksh, Mohd Yunus, Mohd Imran and Mohd Ikhlaq. We met Sartaj Begum who was caught in the curfew area and could not leave it for five days because of the curfew. She was in tears. There were several people who had been similarly caught.

We visited Shastri Nagar and Vijay Nagar. This is a Hindu dominated area. In one pocket in Shasri Nagar there are about five or six Muslim families. At around 9 p m on the 18th, a group of men on motor cycles came to the area and threw some bombs at the Muslim houses. Immediately the neighbours came rushing out, but by then the men had escaped. Urmila Srivastava, a women’s organisation activist, gave shelter to these Muslim families. We met Naseeran, Shammi Begum, Shahnaz, Farida Bano and some others. They said they were completely terrorised and were only staying in the area because of the help and affection extended by their neighbours like Urmila. We were told that bombs were also thrown at the nearby masjid in Vijaynagar. The police raided the house of one of the suspects, the son of a BJP corporator, and found 13 bombs and other arms there. Only one of the sons of this lady corporator, named Manoj Gupta, was arrested.

Following the arrests, Bajrang Dal groups went around Geeta Bazar forcing the shops to close down. Three Muslim shops in this area were targeted and burnt down. Two stalls owned by Muslims were also burnt down in this area.

We were told that rumours were being deliberately spread in all Hindu-majority areas, exaggerating the extent of damage to the mandirs and to Hindu property. Rumours were also spread about attacks on Hindu women. This was deliberately done to incite passions. It is to the credit of the people that they refused to be provoked. The administration did not take a single step to diffuse the tension being deliberately created in the Hindu-majority areas.