Communal Riots Plague India Town

Parts of the town remain under curfew twelve days after the latest eruption of communal violence on Thursday, April6 , with simultaneous stone throwing, looting and arson in different areas.

At least seven people were killed and scores wounded, many seriously, in the violence which flared up after Muslim complaints of the enlargement of a temple, standing on the adjacent mosque's land, during a Hindu festival.

Though the land was originally given years ago to Hindus to build a water outlet for passersby, a small temple soon emerged on the site.

It continues to be routinely enlarged during Hindu festivals leading to complaints and friction between Hindus and Muslims.

A case has been pending in courts for the last three decades against the encroachment.

All Muslims

Many have accused police and the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) of firing at Muslims from the rooftops of Hindu houses.

"It was one-way, heinous crime by the police and the PAC," Dr Sajid Matloob of the Aligarh Muslim University's hospital, told IslamOnline.net.

The simple, young laborers who were wounded and taken to the AMU's hospital, accused police of shooting them at point blank.

"I was going to the shop where I worked," one victim told IOL.

A second said he was on his way to his home for lunch while a third said he was fetching lunch for his father.

India's National Commission for Minorities (NCM), an official watchdog, has accused the state government of Uttar Pradesh (UP), wherein Aligarh is located, of "criminal negligence."

It report concluded that all the dead and injured belonged to the "minority community" and were all shot above the waist.

The NCM accused police of opening fire to disperse the mobs instead of resorting to the usual rubber bullets and batons.

Presenting its findings to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the watchdog recommended the deployment of a paramilitary force with adequate minority representation and a judicial probe into the riots.

PAC is notorious for anti-Muslim bias and some of its members have been on trial since 1987 on charges of killing at least 40 Muslim youth in Hashimpura and Maliana.

Extremists

AMU student leader Abdul Hafeez Gandhi blamed the communal violence on the rath yatra, a voyage around the country in a symbolic Hindu chariot, currently being taken out by Hindu nationalist leader LK Advani.

"They are trying to revive the dead horse of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) by burning Aligarh," he charged.

The firebrand leader, who served as deputy prime minister and interior minister in the BJP-led government voted out two years ago, said the aim of his voyage was to awaken Hindu masses.

Government officials have warned that this yatra, which started on 6 April from the north-western state of Gujarat, could lead to communal tensions in the country.

A similar yatra in 1992 had led to the demolition of the Babri mosque by thousands of Hindu fanatics.

The demolition was followed by the building of a makeshift temple at the site of the demolished mosque.

Hindus claimed the mosque had been built over a temple to the Hindu deity Ram in the16 th century.

http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-04/18/article05.shtml