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| Sunday, 23 June 2002 |
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India's riot-hit Muslims fear leaving relief camps AHMEDABAD, India, June 22 (Reuters) - More than three months after India's worst religious bloodshed in a decade, thousands of Muslims remain in relief camps because they have nowhere to go or fear for their lives if they return to their homes. Others in the relief camps say the government's compensation payments are not enough for them to return to their homes. Many of the 110,000 people who sought refuge in camps during the riots in western Gujarat state have returned to their homes, but relief officials say at least 30,000 Muslims are still packed into ramshackle tents. "They (Hindu mobs) have destroyed everything. How do officials expect us to come and stay here?" Salim Ismail, a rickshaw driver, said as he surveyed his ransacked two-room house in a mixed neighbourhood. "They have not only looted our belongings but taken away the doors and windows and damaged the roofs as well," he said. Some Muslims say they have chosen to stay on in relief camps because they have been warned by Hindu neighbours not to return. "You are banned from coming here again," read the graffiti outside a mosque on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, Gujarat's main city which bore the brunt of the communal frenzy. Muslims, who have dared to return home, say they have been shocked by the graffiti on the walls of their houses and mosques, warning them of further attacks. Muslims bore the brunt in the riots which started late in February after a Muslim mob torched a train carrying Hindu devotees, killing 59 people. Officials said nearly 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in the reprisal killings and riots that followed, although human rights groups put the toll at more than 2,500. Thousands of Muslims in relief camps, who live with just a long piece of cloth tied to bamboo poles over their head, say their houses have been reduced to rubble or burnt down. "The government's rehabilitation efforts are half-hearted. Those in camps are being pressurised to return home even if they don't have one," E. Ahmed, general secretary of the Indian Union Muslim League, told Reuters. Many Muslims in relief camps say compensation payments for the loss of lives or homes is not enough to return. "All I have received is 6,250 rupees ($127.8). What can I do with this amount? It's not even sufficient to run my family of six for a month," said Asif Aslam Khan, who fled to a camp during the violence in early March. Relief workers say many of those whose kin were killed in the mayhem are finding it difficult to produce documents required to claim compensation. "How could someone produce proof, when people were burnt beyond recognition? All their official records were reduced to ashes in the riots," said Munir Sheikh, a coordinator at a camp. Government officials said authorities were providing adequate compensation to people affected by the religious bloodletting. "Compensation is being given on the basis of proper surveys and it is good enough. We have been very liberal in cases where the claimants did not have adequate proof," S.K. Pandya, the state's director for relief operations, said. Pandya also denied that the government was closing down camps and forcing people to return to their homes. Muslims also fear further violence during an annual Hindu procession in Ahmedabad on July 12 that has sparked clashes between the two communities in the past. The procession route passes through a majority Muslim area in Ahmedabad's old quarter and fearing trouble, police officials in Ahmedabad have asked the government to ban the procession. "I am scared since everyone is talking about troubles during the rath yatra (chariot procession). It should not be allowed to go ahead," said Kudrat Bano, who lives in a camp with three children after her husband was killed and house torched in the riots. |
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