NEW DELHE: The Uttar Pradesh government is directly responsible for the recent riots in Varahasi, and has totally communalized the state administration”, according to Wasim Ahmed, national secretary of the Janata Dal, Ahmed, who visited Varanasi this week with V P Singh and Chandrajit Yadav in the wake of the riots, alleged that they were “engineered by S.C. Dixit of the Vishwa Hindu Prashad (VHP), and the local administration acted solely under his guidance. Ahmed said the riots, which started on November 8, were exacerbated on November 13 “solely because the administration did not take any preventive steps in the five days between the two incidents, if those guilty on November 8 had been arrested, there would have been no retaliation”.
The Janata Dal leaders were not allowed to visit the riot-affected areas, but the district administration permitted them to talk to those who had been arrested and were in jail. Ahmed described the state governments claim that people from both communities had been arrested as “disinformation.”
The arrested 240 Muslims and six Hindus. All six were charged with the in or offence of prohibiting curfew orders one was arrested because he had taken his three-yr-old son for a short walk, another for trying to buy vegetables, two more for trying to sell them.
“On the other hand, 119 of the Muslims arrested were charged with murder, attempt to murder, rioting, and everything close the government could think of. When we visited the jail, there were 178 Muslims still under arrest there. Over 30 of them had fractures, inflicted by the police and the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC). All were bruised. “After the November 13 incidents, the PAC let loose a complete reign of terror in the Muslim neighborhoods.
After the guise of conducting aches they beat up everybody, destroyed the handlooms which provide the livelihood to most Muslims in Varanasi, and molested women. Their specific targets were well known secular leaders of the Muslim community”.
“Anees Ahmed, one of the most respected doctors in Varanasi, was picked up and tortured so much that he died in the police lock-up. Then the police shifted his body to the jail, and wanted his name entered in the jail records, so that they could claim he had died there. But the jailer refused, and the district magistrate was forced to admit that he died in police custody.
Two brothers of the doctor and other relatives, were among the 119 who had been charged by the police, Ahmed said, So were relatives of the Mayor of Varanasi, Swal-e-Ansari, and two grandsons of Abdul Majid, India’s first ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and the host of Jawaharlal
Nehru whenever the country’s first Prime Minister went to Varanasi. Fiauddin Ahmed, secretary of the Congress unit in Varanasi, was also in jail, He told the Janata Dal leaders that the PAC had arbitrarily entered every house in his neighborhood, mead everyone of being “Pakistanis” used rifle butts to beat people, and then haul whoever they could to jail. “We have no option but to take to terrorism now,” he said.
This is the technique of the VHP,” Ahmed alleged. “They engineer a Hindu-Muslim conflict, and then turn it into a police versus Muslim situation,” He also expressed the fear that if secular forces did not come forward to combat this situation night now, the Muslims would be forced to take up arms. Ahmed said that with the minorities having lost all faith in the present state government the situation had worsened due to the non-action of the Center. He demanded that the state govt be dismissed at once and a judicial enquiry ordered into the riots.
The track record of the present government is poorer than that of previous two governments when it comes to cases of rioting. In its first 75 days, the Kalyan Singh govt registered 2.251 cases of rioting. In the same period, the Mulayam Singh government had registered 2,053 such cases, and the Narayan Dutt Tiwari government had registered, 706. Murder cases have also been on the rise in this period. In the first 75 days of the Tiwari government, 1,702 cases of murder were registered; in the Mulayam Singh government, the figure rose to 1,744; now it is 2,076.The Varanasi riots have come as the biggest embarrassment to the present government. As many as 22 persons have been killed so far and the town is still under curfew even after more than a fortnight. Violence broke out in this holy city on November 8 at the Madanpura Mohall while a procession was being taken out for the immersion of the idol of Goddess Kali. Said Debu Bhattacharya, a member of the Navsangh Club which had sponsored the procession. “We had terminated the membership of some mischievous persons from our club this year. It was they who precipitated trouble by insisting on bursting crackers in this predominant Muslim locality.” As the Police force was inadequate, some anti-social elements cashed in on the situation and turned the minor scuffle into a full-fledged riot according to the police.
Residents of Madanpura recounted that the procession entered the locality around 8 pm and was escorted by members of a peace committee comprising eminent persons of both the communities. Suddenly, a group of around 15 persons led by a local BJP activist Padam Pati Sharma, started bursting crackers about 30 yards away from the precisionists. They were asked to desist by some residents as the market was still open at that time. Amid the ensuring altercation, some miscreants rushed to the densely populated Gadaulla crossing some distance away and started shouting that the Muslims had attacked the precisionists and desecrated the idol of Kali. Following this misleading outcry Violence broke out. Some members of the minority were brutally beaten up at the crossing. Two persons were brut alive after doused being with petrol and kerosene. Stones were also thrown.
This continued for about two hours after which the police and senior district officers reached the spot. Apparently, the reason for delay was a function being held in the honor of BJP president L.K Advani which most of the officials had gone to attend.
After the officials reached the spot, curfew was immediately imposed in eight police areas of the city. The police took into custody around half a-dozen persons who were residing on the pavements and were not involved in the incident at all. Not one of the culprits has as yet been nabbed. The trouble would have ended but two front page reports in Hindi Calles carrying the names and addresses of those killed. Five of those mentioned in these reports were members of the minority community. This gave an opportunity to the anti-social elements to stir up communal passions. The result was that on November 13, during curfew relaxation, eight members of the majority community were pulled out of a tempo and knotted to death in the Madanpura locality. Three succumbed to their injuries at the hospital. Two persons were killed in police action. One of those who succumbed in the lock-up was Dr.Aris Ansari, a member of the peace committee which had been set up to escort the Kati procession on November 8. he was the nephew of the famous Urdu poet Nazir Banarsi. The Varanasi riots have on the one hand brought the BJP government on the matt and on the other given a free hand to the jostling political parties to raise the issue and cash in on the situation. The issue dominated the proceedings of Parliament on the first day of its winter session on November 20. Both V.P.Singh and Ajit Singh of the Janata Dal led separate delegations to this city to assess the situation. The Congress team was represented by H.K.L.Bhagat. Whereas the BJP has given full freedom to its cadres to visit the trouble rocked areas, it has imposed restrictions on the press and delegations of other political parties on the pretext that “it might increase tension”. Meanwhile, eyebrows are being raised on the efficiency and role of the district magistrate Saurabh Chandra and the city S.P Jeevanchandra Pandey. The latter is the son-in-law of the brother of the local BJP MP Sirish Chandra Dixit. It is the third riot during the tenures of these two officials. Communal tension had flared in this city at the time of the last general elections also.
WSN Service
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka has again proposed the aborted summit of the SAARC countries be held between December 20-31 and prefers December 21 for a one day business session, the island republics foreign secretary has been quoted as saying. The summit was sabotaged by India last month which, according to Indian foreign ministry sources, did so under U.S, pressure.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 6, 1991
