Muslim refugees face new horrors in camps Aid workers tell of Hindu
terror tactics and appalling conditions
INDIA S. N. M. Abdi in Calcutta
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST , p 13
March 25, 2002
Around midnight, thousands of Muslims in Ahmedabad's largest relief
camp at the Shah-e-Alam shrine are woken by the shrill cry of Hindu mobs
baying for their blood. But Rafiq Ahmed, who runs the camp, tells the
frightened
refugees to go back to sleep.
"We found out that Vishwa Hindu Parishad hoodlums are now playing
cassettes of blood-curdling cries and howls on loudspeakers at night
to intimidate inmates and deprive them of sleep," Mr Ahmed said.
He added that the police were ignoring the new terror tactics of this
and other anti-Muslim groups in Gujarat, where Hindu-Muslim tensions
continue to simmer after the recent rioting that left more than 700
dead.
Gujarat's Bharatiya Janata Party Government is facing severe criticism
for the appalling conditions in state-run relief camps for 75,000
Muslims displaced by large-scale killings, arson and looting by Hindu
mobs.
The Government also is under pressure for its inaction during the
rioting, when Hindus killed more than 650 Muslims and burned shops and
homes throughout Gujarat after the deaths of 58 Hindu activists on a train
set on fire by a Muslim mob on February 27.
Police said a curfew was in force yesterday in the Vijalpur area of
Ahmedabad and in Jambusar in Bharuch district after scattered
incidents.
In the latest unrest yesterday a mob killed a Muslim woman in
Vijalpur, a Hindu-majority area of Ahmedabad, and one person was
stabbed
in the same area, police said.
A leading non-governmental organisation, Sahmat, has accused the
Government of discriminating against the victims of violence, mostly
Muslims, living in shelters throughout the state.
Aid workers say there is an acute shortage of food, cooking oil,
sugar and other needs such as medicine, clothes and blankets. The
Hindustan Times newspaper reported that each camp, housing about 3,000
people, had only six toilets and people received only 60 grams of
wheat a
day.
Authorities are stopping relief trucks sent by Muslim charities to
the camps, claiming they have received reports that the trucks might
be
smuggling arms.
"There is no sign of the fabled Gujarati philanthropy which was so
much in evidence during last year's earthquake," said Harsh Mander, of
Action Aid India.
"The Muslim riot victims are being looked after almost exclusively by
Muslim organisations. It is as though the monumental pain, loss,
betrayal
and injustice suffered by them is the concern only of other Muslim
people."
Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet have not visited any of
the 29 shelters, blaming security concerns.
Father Jimmy Dhabi, a Jesuit priest in Ahmedabad, said government
officials refused to lend his group a single truck to deliver food to
the
camps.
He said: "They won't give us police protection. The other day, armed
Hindu men stopped us as we were coming out of a Muslim neighbourhood
and
held a spear to our throats."
Christians also have been targeted by Hindu mobs in the violence
gripping the state.
Besides food and shelter, aid workers said there was also an urgent
need for counselling to help the dispossessed cope with psychological
trauma.
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