Varanasi: The looms that wove the famous Benarasi saris for centuries have fallen silent. Communal riots have devastated Bajardeeh, Nandan, Saraisurjan and the nearby localities and villages of the area.

Silver-haired men, whose nimble fingers produced the zari, work Stare vacantly at the devastation around and ponder: Is it the same city where Hindus and Muslims vied with one other to save the secular heritage of Saint Kabir?

Women were burnt alive. Those seeing to flee were clubbed and hacked to death. And those who managed to reach the police were beaten up and put behind bars.

It was a nightmare”, mumbles Mohammed Yascen, a 52-yr-old weaver of Saraj Nandau, shaking his head in disbelief. This reporter visited him in jail where he is locked with his two sons.

It was 10:30 am on May 21 when Yaseen saw an armed mob approaching his lane; He hurriedly locked the door from inside and went to the roof. The mob had by this time started bludgeoning the door with axes and iron rods. Yaseen was relieved to spot a contingent of the police and PAC in the rear lane and jumped down with his two sons. He was hoping to summon help to save the womenfolk trapped inside.

The sub-inspector and his men, however, appeared deaf to his pleas. “They caught hold of us and started dragging us to a police van showering lathi blows on us all along,” he recalled. Mercifully he was spared of witnessing the plight of the women.

But others did. According to Akeela, Yaseen’s 10-yr-old daughter, the miscreants started smashing everything in sight as soon as they entered,

SET ABLAZE: A group meanwhile, rushed to the roof where her mother Sitara, sister Shakeela and sister-in-law Sayeda were huddled in a corner, they were attacked with choppers and lathis, As Shakeela and Sayeda fell down unconscious they were set ablaze.

A profusely bleeding Sitara Devi, with a hand chopped off, tried to flee but collapsed. She was rushed to the hospital then she died two days later.

“What pains me is that this barbarism was inflicted by people we know. Young men who called my wife chachi and my daughter didi, he said,

Similar tales were heard in Bajardeeh, Deopokhari and Jokha village on the outskirts of the city. Whatever the rioters spared was ravaged by the police and the PAC men,

In Bajardeeh and neighboring areas, inhabited primarily by weavers, violence erupted when a PAC officer started beating a social worker, Khaleel, who was trying to sooth frayed tempers. Scores of houses were damaged and set ablaze.

A 70-yr-old weaver, Abdul Waheed, was sitting before his house in Jokkha village when a group of PAC jawans pounced on him and stared battering him. Waheed died on May 21 and was hurriedly buried. Even his family members were not allowed to see the body. Not a single loom in this Weavers’ village was intact when this reporter visited the place.

TRADERS WORRIED: Although Varanasi has witnessed communal notes before. Bajrech and adjoining areas had remained unaffected, says Mr Ram Chandar a silk merchant in Dashaswamegh incidents may prove traumatic for traders,” he fears.

Apart from the active role of the police, an almost total disruption of Hindu-Muslim relations seems to be the novel feature this time. However, more sinister is the fact that the riots were deliberately provoked, if not engineered by people for short term electoral gains.

Benia Bagh, site of a stormy BJP meeting has lower middle-class Muslim households on three sides which makes it a communally sensitive place. A section of district officials feel that Mr S.C.Dixit, himself a seasoned police officer, should have known better than to insist on holding a meeting there, Trouble according to them erupted when provocative slogans at the meeting were answered by brick batting from rooftops.

Mr Dixit does not agree, “If Mr Chandra Shekhar and Mr Rajiv Gandhi can hold a meeting at Benja Bagh, why can’t I?” he asks.

The speed with which trouble escalated within an hour or so in areas under four police stations with reports of bombings arson and stabbings, showed how deep the roots of Suspicion have spread.

 CURFEW RELAXED: Parts of the city were under curfew when it went to the polls on May 20 although the authorities had formally relaxed curfew trouble broke out in Jaipur with violence developing new areas, Varanasi would have continued to burn but for the assassination of Mr Rajiv Gandhi which benumbed the city.

Article extracted from this publication >> June 7, 1991