RIGHTS-INDIA:
Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Aug 9 (IPS) - India's Supreme Court has indicated its determination to ensure that victims of rape and murder in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in western Gujarat state ruled by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) get justice.
On Monday the court berated the Gujarat government's public prosecutor for opposing the issuance of warrants against 21 people accused of carrying out one of the worst incidents of the pogrom in which 14 people were massacred at the Best Bakery in Ahmedabad city.
''You have been showing your true colours from day one..... what sort of public prosecutor are you that you oppose arrest warrants against accused who do not appear before the court?'' a vexed Justice Arijit Pasayat asked the represeanttive of the Gujarat government.
The bench suggested that the Gujarat government take the view of the victims in appointing a new public prosecutor and ordered the police chief in Gujarat to ensure that the accused were produced before the trial court in Congress-party ruled western Maharashtra state where the Best Bakery case is being heard.
Four months ago, the Supreme Court ordered the transfer of the case out of Gujarat after the main witness Zahira Sheikh, whose family owned the Best Bakery complained of partisanship by the Gujarat High Court as well as threats to her life.
In an interview to IPS soon after Monday's pronouncements, Teesta Setalvad, leader of the voluntary agency Citizens for Justice and Peace said she was satisfied with the ''continued support'' from the Supreme Court.
Sheikh managed to save herself from mobs that set ablaze the Best Bakery and murdered her sister, uncle, three cousins and seven others in the pogrom carried out in revenge for the burning of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims at Godhra station on Feb 27, 2002.
At least 2,000 people were killed in the pogrom that raged on for weeks, while the BJP state government led by Chief Minister Narendra Modi looked the other way and refused to help some 150,000 people who were forced to live in makeshift refugee camps after their homes and businesses were burned down.
Hardliners in the BJP prevented their leader and prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee from sacking Modi who had come under severe condemnation not only from human rights groups but also the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), a statutory body.
The failure to take action against Modi was to cost the BJP heavily and Vajpayee himself attributed the party's shock defeat in the April/May parliamentary elections to its poor record in controlling the worst communal violence since India became independent in 1947.
Although the new Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is committed to maintaining communal harmony it has taken care not to disturb the Modi government out of respect for federal principles.
But the Supreme Court, an important pillar of India's democracy, has never hesitated to let it be known that it disapproved of brazen attempts by the Modi government to derail investigations into the pogrom and bring its perpetrators to justice.
Only last Friday it ordered the transfer of yet another case of rape and murder during the pogrom to Maharashtra after favourably considering a plea made by a gang-raped victim who said she had no hope of a fair trial in Gujarat.
The victim who was pregnant at that time, has named members of a rampaging mob that murdered 12 of her relatives, including her three-year-old daughter, and gang-raped her.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) backed her claims in a report after a highly partisan state police in Gujarat refused to record her complaints properly and a court in Gujarat threw out her case.
In its report, the CBI has charged 20 persons with rape and murder and these include two members of the BJP and six officers of the Gujarat police.
''This is not just my struggle. It is the struggle of countless Muslim women who were raped or humiliated during the riots whose names I do now know but whose pain I feel,'' the victim told reporters on Friday.
According to rights groups the bulk of more than 4,000 cases registered with Gujarat police that were related to the pogrom have been dropped for lack of evidence or because of intimidation of witnesses by members of the BJP or its sister organisations.
But the transfer of the Best Bakery case and that of the gang- raped victim out of Gujarat have resulted in a spate of special appeals for justice to the Supreme Court which is hearing at least half a dozen of them, according to Setalvad. .
Delhi-based social activist Farha Naqvi who has been assisting the victim said the rush to get cases transferred out of Gujarat was because ''the victims have no confidence that they would get justice in Gujarat.''
Apart from voluntary agencies such as the Mumbai-based Citizens for Justice and Peace, the victims have the support of the NHRC, which took the initiative in filing the petition before the Supreme Court asking for fresh investigation of the Gujarat gang-rape case.
More than two years after the pogrom it is still considered a highly sensitive issue and one which has led to deep bitterness between the BJP and its the secular-minded regional allies which also fared badly in the parliamentary elections.
In spite of the change in government at the centre, the Indian Censor Board has banned ''The Final Solution'' a documentary film on the Gujarat violence made by the noted film-maker Rakesh Sharma although it bagged two awards at the 54th Berlin Film Festival.
The film takes in an 18-month period and reconstructs the gang-rapes and mob-violence and also records the impact of the violence on popular feelings and its influence on the elections that followed.
According to the Censor Board, Sharma's film ''promotes communal disharmony among Hindu and Muslim groups, and presents the picture of Gujarat riots in a way that may arouse communal feelings and clashes. Certain dialogues involve defamation of individuals. The entire picturisation is highly provocative."
Sharma who takes pride in the fact that he does not have to interpret the film because ''the linkages are clear for all to see'' now plans to approach the Supreme Court to get the ban lifted. (END/2004)
Posted by proutist-universal on August 10, 2004 02:00 AM