estimated 2000 Muslims in the course of a week, have horrified not only all of
India but right thinking people all over the world. But what is even more
shocking is the growing evidence that there was complicity in the pogrom of
powerful elements of the ruling dispensation and the brutal use of the state
machinery which simply collapsed in the face of mob rule. There are reports of
cabinet ministers directing police units towards certain areas and away from
other neighbourhoods, of blatantly communal attitudes of policemen and the
overall picture is that of a state which failed to protect the lives and
property of large numbers of people of a single community. Even today, there
are over 150000 people homeless, living in squalor in makeshift shelters
without any home to return to.
These facts have been supported by the reports prepared by a number of
fact-finding teams sent to Gujarat by various governmental and non-governmental
bodies, such as India's National Human Rights Commission, SAHMAT (a
non-governmental organization), the Centre for the Study of Society and
Secularism and the British High Commission in India.
As if to underscore the discriminatory nature of the state, the government
announced two differing sets of compensation for the victims of this
massacre--or ethnic genocide--and for the 58 or so victims who died in a train
fire a few days before the riots. The victims of the massacred were offered One
Lakh Rupees each, whereas those who were killed in the train fire were granted
Two Lakh Rupees each. A group of eminent Indians brought this discriminatory
action to the attention of the President of India in a petition requesting him
to provide additional financial support to the former.
While both events were horrifying, we strongly believe that they cannot be
compared, both in terms of scale and their origins and nature. Reports have
established that the attack on Sabarmati Express bringing back volunteers of
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad from Ayodhya was provoked by a pattern of harassing
and degrading behaviour by these passengers against Muslim men and women
selling snacks on the train. The attacks on the various Muslim communities in
different parts of Gujarat, on the other hand, were highly organized,
pre-planned, condoned and led by members of the government, and either
unchecked or supported by the state police machinery.
Because of the deliberate nature of the killing of Muslims in Gujarat and
destruction of their homes and businesses, that the state chief minister
Narendra Modi has been compared with Milosevic. His remark that every action
has an equal reaction has been seen as an explicit approval of the marauding
mobs that went out and burnt men women and children alive with little worry
about being stopped. His subsequent failure to prevent more attacks, brazen
defiance of all civil and poliitical norms, and refusal to acknowledge his
constitutional duty to protect lives have confirmed that he is not a man to be
trusted to run the state. His party has refused to ask him to quit and take
responsibility for the ethnic cleansing. The BJP-led central government of
India continues to defend him. He has emerged as a hero to the forces of hate
that seem to have taken over his state.
In such a situation, there is no option but to try him for crimes against
humanity so that the message goes out loud and clear that there will be no
escape for those who discard all civil norms of behaviour.
Please circulate this petition to as many people as you can and this will then
be forwarded to the recently constituted International Criminal Court.
Though India is not a signatory to this, India does have a provision to hold a
trial in India for crimes committed in any part of the world against an Indian.
Furthermore, the news that the families of those British citizens killed during
the riots in Gujarat are contemplating filing criminal charges against Narendra
Modi clearly point to the possibility of extra-territorial judicial remedies
against alleged perpetrators of such crimes.
Modi's culpability has been well established in the Gujarat riots and his
inability or unwillingness to stop the continued anti-minority killings is
evidence enough that he is not interested in restoring normalcy to Gujarat. His
party's insistence on not sacking him and cynically exploring the possibility
of holding elections in the state to "exploit" Hindu sentiment points to a
bigger conspiracy. This must be stopped and the only way to do it is to hold
Modi accountable and send a clear message to future perpetrators of such
heinous crimes against humanities.
Committee for a Secular India
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Alok Mukherjee
86 Pinewood Avenue
Toronto, ON M6C 2V1
Telephone: 416-653-8583
Fax: 416-653-5250
E-mail:
almukher@yorku.ca 
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