“Take us home…” cry the 61,000 riot victims languishing in over 80 riot camps across Gujarat, without any basic civic amenities and unacknowledged by the state.
Five years after Godhra riots
AHMEDABAD: “Take us home…” cry the 61,000 riot victims languishing in over 80 riot camps across Gujarat, without any basic civic amenities and unacknowledged by the state.
Their wounds are as raw as they were at the time they were inflicted. Five years after the 2002 communal riots tore the social fabric of Gujarat, victims from the minority community still wait for rehabilitation, compensation and justice.
Nearly 2,500 people are believed to have been massacred, 400 women allegedly raped and nearly 2.5 lakh people directly displaced by the worst communal flare-up in the state. Over 220 people are still officially missing. Most of the 4,252 accused were released within a year of the carnage, and no one was convicted.
The circumstances which triggered the fire on Sabarmati Express continue to be mysterious, with 209 people from the minority community, accused of “conspiracy”, still languishing in jail under POTA. The recent SC order giving a reprieve to these undertrials has come as a ray of hope for their families.
From rehab camps to jails, victims and eye-witnesses have lost all hope of justice. Rights groups claim that even rehabilitation packages for the families of the deceased have not been distributed. NGOs claim that over 80 per cent victims have not received even the paltry sum of Rs 50,000 granted for every home which was destroyed in the riots.
Activists allege there has been no reform in the attitude of the government even after the riots. “The minority community faces severe social and economic boycott and ghettoisation. Cops who stood by the Constitution have been isolated by the state and those who failed are being promoted,” says Teesta Setalvad.
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