People's Democracy

LED by its district secretary Shivnath Singh, a 7-member CPI(M) team visited village Mohan Mundera in Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh recently, on getting the news of rape of one Chandrasheela Rajbhar and the riot that was engineered after it. After visiting the village and ascertaining the facts through interactions with the common people of the village, the CPI(M) team demanded immediate action against the accused.

In the case in question, a youth called Suleman, who was staying with his maternal relatives, raped a girl called Chandrasheela Rajbhar, which the villagers came to know only next day. Elders of both communities in the village --- Hindu as well as Muslim --- then got together and tried to resolve the matter in village panchayat. However, Chandrasheela died the next day. The police was not informed of the incident till then. The two communities collected Rs 7500 for her last rites. Suleman was absconding.

The police arrested Suleman and efforts were being made by the police and administration to take possession of Chandrasheela’s dead body for conducting a postmortem. It was now that the panchayat president of Marhia village and other communal elements of the Shiv Sena, RSS and BJP intervened to give the event a dangerous, communal turn. They arranged for a visit of Yogi Adityanand, BJP MP from Gorakhpur, and held a rally.

When the police failed to take possession of the dead body, the villagers felt the events could take a communal turn. Terrified to the core, Muslim elders, children and women fled the village, though some Muslim youth stayed behind. The activists of RSS and its affiliated organisations moved through the neighbouring villages, whipping up communal passions and issuing a directive for heavy turnout at Yogi Adityanand's rally. The RSS, VHP and Shiv Sena activists exhorted the people to prepare for a Gujarat-style onslaught on the Muslims. Unfortunately, the administration made no attempt to prevent the situation from taking an ugly turn.

Many of Adityanand’s followers reached the village before he arrived himself. One Virendra Tiwari (from Gorakhpur) made a provocative speech and exhorted the people to turn Mohan Mundera into another Gujarat. When Adityanand reached the village, the administration asked the remaining Muslims to flee. The mob led by Virendra Tiwari and Tulsi Sharma (of Mohan Mundera) targetted Muslim houses, looting and setting them afire. The rioters burnt down 47 Muslim houses, and 13 houses were looted as they could not be set afire because they were surrounded by Hindu houses. The rioters smashed the hand pumps and burnt down whatever they could not loot or carry away. All this was being done as part of deliberate plan to teach a lesson to the Muslims. The large number of the police personnel and the fire brigade made no attempt to control the rioters or douse the fire. The administration remained a mute spectator. The local administration come into action only after Adityanand had left and the people assembled for the rally began to leave, and arrested 22 or 23 people.

Significantly, village chief Dukhidass Patel’s house and tractor were also burnt down, as he had tried to resolve the matter amicably, in cooperation with other villagers. The mob destroyed three tractors, two trolleys and pumping sets belonging to members of the minority community, damaged the mosque, burnt the carpets and other material kept therein, and razed one of its minarets to the ground. Copies of the Quran were burnt to ashes. Many items of use were either destroyed or looted. The administration got the mosque repaired overnight to give an impression as if nothing serious had happened.

But the fact is: Had the administration acted effectively, prevented the people from assembling and stopped Adtiyanand at Bodarbar, the entire ghastly sequence of events that followed could have been avoided. It is to be noted that the village had about 60 Muslim and 40 Hindu houses, and there had never been any discord among them.

The administration made a mockery of the victims’ agony by providing only 50 kg of wheat, 20 kg of rice, 4 metres of plastic sheets and Rs 1,000 to each of the affected families as relief.The CPI(M) delegation made the following demands: 1) a judicial inquiry into the events; 2) a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to Chandrasheela’s family; 3) immediate relief of Rs 3 lakh to each of those whose houses have been looted and burnt down; and 4) immediate arrest of and punishment to the guilty.