Gujarat riot victims hunt for bodies, justice

[Awesome]

LUNAWADA, AUGUST 9: After a tip from a local streetsweeper, Amina Habib Rasool and a few friends began digging through a rubbish tip, looking for the remains of sons and husbands four years after they were slaughtered by a mob.

Just a few feet down, they started finding skulls.

"I pleaded, screamed and fought for four years with the government to tell me where they had buried my son," says 67-year-old Rasool, a cleaner at a mosque in Lunawada, 180 km east of Ahmedabad.

"They always ignored me."

In 2002, during some of the worst bloodshed in India's history, she watched a mob grab her 25-year-old son, Ayub Habib, and drag him into the trees near the family's home. He never came home.

Like many relatives of victims of the Gujarat riots, Rasool has been searching ever since to find and bury Ayub with dignity.

Officially, more than 1,000 people were hacked or burned to death in rioting after 59 pilgrims died in a train fire originally blamed on a mob but which investigations later found to be an accident.

Rights groups put the toll at well over 2,000.

Rasool and hundreds of others ran up against a wall of denial and stonewalling from officials in an administration that the Supreme Court accused of failing to stop the killing. The court also accused police of helping the killers.

WAITING TO BURY DEAD

DNA tests from the mass grave confirmed the bodies were those of Ayub and 20 other men and women killed in the rioting. The relatives say police helped dump the bodies.

"Now we are all waiting to bury and say the last prayers for our loved ones," says Salma Rasool, whose husband, Saleem Sheikh, was killed in the rioting.

In December, a street cleaner who was paid to help get rid of the bodies told Amina Rasool and the others of the remains buried in the rubbish dump now slowly being reclaimed by wild scrub.

"We were shocked, sad and angered when we found the remains, clothes and even silver bangles that were worn by our people," says Mehboob Rasool.

Four members of his family -- his father-in-law, mother-in-law, aunt and a cousin -- were killed by the mob in the dense forest around Lunawada. Mehboob's house was torched.

Salma Rasool was five months' pregnant when a mob attacked her home. She fled from the village and hid alone in the forest for three days.

Amina Rasool was hiding nearby in the same forest.

"I hid behind a rock alone with nothing to eat wondering where my husband would be," says Amina.

The Lunawada families have filed a court case against the state police for failing to stop the riots and are demanding an independent inquiry.

MODERN-DAY NEROS

The case has rekindled tensions between Hindus and Muslims in Lunawada. The two communities still live together, but as in most of Gujarat, they no longer mix.

"My husband's body should be buried in a cemetery. Not dumped in a wasteland where people pile their garbage every day. Is that too much to ask for?" says Johara Syed, a 25-year-old mother of two.

Police and government officials refuse to comment on the case while it is still before the court.

But after the discovery of the remains stoked tensions, the police response was to charge the families of the dead with illegally exhuming bodies.

"They intended to disturb the law and order by digging up the grave(ROFL Bwahahahaha). We have a criminal case against them and now let the court decide," said police officer Rakesh Asthana.

Human rights activists want action and are fighting to get a judge to visit the site and have it declared a Muslim cemetery.

"There are four Muslim cemeteries in the town. Why did the police dump the bodies in forest land?" asks Teesta Setalvad, the secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace, the lead advocacy group for victims' families.

Efforts to bring the killers of 2002 to justice have become mired in charges of political interference and accusations of cover-ups.

The Supreme Court has ordered the state government to give progress reports every three months.

In April, 2004, the court ordered the retrial of a landmark case over the 2002 riots, and shifted the hearings to a neighbouring state.

In its judgement, the court said: "The modern-day Neros were looking elsewhere when innocent children and helpless women were burning and were probably deliberating on how the perpetrators of the crime could be saved or protected."

Excellent. So when one faces questions, threaten to counter sue them over such ridiculous charges. For four years they dumped the bodies of their family members in a garbage dump and when they found the bodies themselves, they are being accused of roughing up some feathers of the Indian Peace House of cards?

Justice...?