[Reader-list] from Goa (Communal riots)

[Vedavati Jogi]

dear friends,

how do you find this article given below (appeared n 'the hoot') written by 
Dasu Krishnamoorty

vedavati
.......................................................................

Two judgments coming in the span of a week became the talk of the town. 
There was all-round applause for a Mumbai special court awarding life 
sentence to nine of the 21 accused in what has come to be known as the Best 
Bakery case. The other was a Delhi court acquitting all the accused in the 
murder of Jessica Lal in a restaurant socialite Bina Ramani owns. Both cases 
involved capricious depositions by witnesses. In the Best Bakery, media and 
NGOs zealously took the battle into the sanctum of the Supreme Court and 
persuaded the apex court to transfer the trial to a special court outside 
Gujarat. The media are now worked up about the freeing of all accused in the 
Jessica case and one may assume that the curtain has not come down on the 
case. It figured in Parliament on Monday. The Best Bakery case also cannot 
be said to have ended since the accused can still appeal to the Supreme 
Court,

Several newspapers commented on both the judgments, indicating delight and 
outrage as also their perceptions on the working of the justice and police 
systems. These cases, like any other case, assert the reality that one: 
victims of injustice have a system to fall back upon for relief and two: the 
accused get a fair trial before they are convicted. The administration of 
justice is in accordance with the law of the land and precedents that form 
the basis for challenging any departure from or distortion of the two. The 
press, on the other hand, is a watchdog that people look to for support. As 
a watchdog, the press is different from the courts. When an issue comes up 
for trial before the press, it has no written codes or precedents to go by 
in assessing the merits of an issue. Also, unlike the courts, media do not 
readily provide hearing to both sides. That changes the complexion of the 
hearing.

Pending the last word of the Supreme Court on a possible appeal from the 
accused, one has to join the Indian Express in describing "the silence from 
11, Ashoka Road" (BJP headquarters) over Friday’s verdict on the Best Bakery 
retrial case as deafening.  The Express did not spare the Congress either. 
"To this day, the dismal failure of governments headed by the Congress to 
throw even one person into jail for those riots that killed some 3,000 Sikhs 
that fateful November is a blot that it can never erase," it said. M.J.Akbar 
commended the role of the media in achieving Friday’s denouement. He wrote, 
"Every Indian can declare with pride that he or she lives in a nation that 
has not only democracy, but something more: institutions of justice that 
deliver in matters of honour, truth, life and death. And thank God for a 
free media too."

The media gave credit to the judiciary for rescuing the case from Gujarat 
courts. On several occasions, judiciary took notice of information in the 
media to suo motu set in motion the due process of law. While this 
media-judiciary interface is the crux of democracy, it is essential that 
media are not seen as influencing the course of justice or judiciary seen as 
taking cue from the media. "Still, it is a landmark judgment, considering 
that it generates optimism about the outcome of many similar cases and in a 
way restores some faith in the judiciary which was rudely shaken yesterday 
in the Jessica Lall’s case," said the Tribune. T.J.S. George of the New 
Indian Express wrote, "When the Jessica Lal murder case turned our criminal 
justice system into a farce, the Best Bakery case provided it with a 
triumphant vindication. Which means all is not lost despite the saboteurs in 
our midst."

The two judgments of last week bring back memories, unless one is struck by 
amnesia, of one of similar cases the Tribune mentioned earlier. That is, the 
tragedy in Radhabai chawl in Mumbai on the night of January 7, 1993. Nine 
persons - six women and three men, of whom two were minors -- were locked in 
a room, doused with kerosene and then set on fire. Five of them died on the 
spot. One died later in hospital. The two minors and one girl survived after 
sustaining disfiguring burns. The Supreme Court freed all the 11 accused, 
setting aside a TADA court conviction. The court observed that the police 
had framed the 11 Muslims and "somehow tried to get them identified through 
witnesses who belonged to the community from which the people were burnt 
alive." Courts, of course, have their own criteria to convict or acquit 
accused, both in accordance with the spirit and letter of the law. This case 
provides remarkable evidence of media passivity.

Of the Best Bakery case, the Tribune said, "But more needs to be done. There 
are others guilty of equally heinous crimes who are still roaming free. The 
law has to catch up with all of them if the shaken faith of the 
right-thinking people, particularly the minority community, is to be 
restored." True, the killers of Radhabai chawl are some of those roaming 
free. They are alive and kicking somewhere while the kith and kin of the 
deceased continue to nurse their unhealed wounds.. Somebody, other than the 
11 persons convicted by the TADA court and later found to be innocent, must 
have done that heinous job on a January night in 1993. This means that the 
real culprits are at large. If a fair trial is a human rights issue that 
concerns every citizen equally, regardless of their political orientation, 
one might say fair deal eluded the survivors of those who perished in the 
Radhabai chawl.

The Indian Express said, "For this newspaper, which doggedly reported on the 
tortuous course of the tragic Best Bakery case, the verdict is a 
vindication." But the Express overlooked one implication:  that the 
newspaper had started probing the Bakery case on the assumption that there 
were discrepancies in the police investigation based on the acquittal of all 
the accused by Gujarat courts. Okay, why did it assume that everything about 
the Radhabai chawl case was honky-dory and therefore failed to pursue it as 
doggedly? Somebody must have set the chawl ablaze. Who are they? Did the 
media lose all interest when they came to know the faith of the victims? 
Will the killers escape both judicial and media oversight? These questions 
cry for answers. Under the law, there is no limitation for re-opening a 
criminal case. Will the media press for it?

The Express and other newspapers that took the interest of a party to the 
case in Best Bakery can as doggedly work on tracing the culprits in the 
Radhabai chawl case. Shivraj Patil told the Rajya Sabha, "As the law exists 
today, no person should be tried twice in any case...Supreme Court has 
ordered reinvestigation in some cases and it has become a kind of law also 
for us. It can be followed," This means that it is possible for the police 
or any other state agency to reinvestigate the Radhabai case. To fend off 
charges of bias, media have a duty to use all their investigative talent to 
identify the killers. Victims are victims and need media support 
irrespective of who they are.

Vir Sanghvi of Hindustan Times said, "I share your rage, your outrage and 
your determination that we must not let Jessica Lall's murder go unpunished. 
To allow that to happen would diminish us as a nation." Vir, if the Radhabai 
murderers go scot free, it will certainly diminish the image of the media 
beside that of the nation. Akbar, please note.



Contact: dasukrishnamoorty at hotmail.com



>From: PREETU NAIR <preetunair at yahoo.com>
>To: reader-list at sarai.net
>Subject: [Reader-list] from Goa (Communal riots)
>Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 01:11:10 -0800 (PST)
>
>RANE AND PARRIKAR ARE BOTH CRIMINALS' – Victims of
>Sanvordem
>(Article appeared in Gomantak Times, Panjim edition
>dated March 6,2005)
>
>When Godhra happened, Gujarat had a BJP government.
>Goa is ruled by a party Muslims trusted blindly… till
>they were blinded last Friday.
>
>Does anyone care to listen to the voice of the Muslims
>in Sanvordem and Curchorem? This is their verdict. You
>want to know why? Here's why. Nighar Agha was asked to
>leave her rented house by her landlady cos she was
>forced to by Hindu mobs. She ran away with her
>4-year-old daughter with a heart problem. Seeing her
>run, the mob snatched away the medicine bag of her
>daughter. She could have died… running from the mob.
>Noorjah Sheikh broke her back but managed to cover the
>mouths of her children so that they didn't shout,
>Sheikh Rafiq locked himself and his family, but the
>mob came, broke his garage and damaged both his cars
>and 2 of his shops. The Sheikh brothers screamed out
>to the police to help when eight of their shops were
>ransacked and looted. Not a single policeman came
>forward.
>
>We looked for these victims in Sanvordem, Curchorem,
>Margao and at the Margao railway station to present
>voices that would have otherwise been numbed
>
>By Preetu Nair
>preetu_nair at gomantaktimes.com
>MARGAO/SANVORDEM /CURCHOREM: It was the greatest test
>of endurance for Nighar Agha last Friday. The images
>of the riots will haunt her forever. Living alone in a
>rented house at Sanvordem, Nigar has three little
>kids. Her husband is in the Gulf and her four-year-old
>daughter has a heart problem and is easily susceptible
>to infection.
>
>"On that unfortunate day, my daughter got an eye
>infection and fever. I was scared and worried about
>her health. Though I wanted to take her to the
>hospital, I couldn't and her condition worsened. In
>the morning, our landlady, a Catholic, came to my
>help. She took my daughter to the hospital. But when
>she returned, she advised me to vacate the house as
>people from the majority community in the area were
>threatening to attack us," she recollects and pauses.
>
>Taking a deep breath, she again continues with the
>horrors she underwent on Saturday afternoon. "Along
>with some boys, who had taken shelter in my house, and
>children, I walked to my brothers' house as no one was
>ready to give us lift and it was impossible for my
>brothers to enter Sanvordem. Four boys lifted my ill
>daughter and we walked for nearly 6 km, when a mob
>surrounded us and abused us. One man snatched the bag
>containing my daughter's medicine and threw it in the
>field. They beat two boys and said, "We will ensure
>that you people are not able to raise your head for
>atleast another 10 years". When I pleaded and cried,
>they allowed us to go."
>
>57-year-old Noorjah Sheikh still squirms in pain. "We
>were scared and helpless. When we heard that mobs were
>attacking our homes, we armed ourselves with the
>masalas and utensils. But when they started pelting
>stones and shouting slogans we got scared. So I rushed
>upstairs in the dark (they didn't switch on the light
>that night) to collect some sticks but lost my balance
>and hurt my back and neck. Though in pain, I didn't
>scream, lest the mob heard my cry. I was scared for
>the lives of the young children at home. I was really
>scared and helpless," she reveals. She admits that it
>is shocking that majority of people from the mob were
>people whom they knew, if not by name, but atleast by
>face.
>
>Revealing his tale of woes, Sheikh Rafiq from
>Sanvordem reveals that he was at the mosque when he
>got message that homes and shops of minority community
>were being ransacked. So he rushed home to be with his
>family of 10. "I locked the door from outside. We
>switched off the lights and were too scared to even
>breathe. Around 8 pm, we heard noises and a mob of
>youngsters approaching our home with torch, shouting
>"Jai Mahadev". They broke open the garage and
>destroyed two cars, while I stood near my window as a
>hapless and speechless spectator. We were so scared
>that women held the mouth of our children, lest they
>make any noise," he revealed.
>
>Questioning the role of police in the communal riot,
>he said, "I called DIG Ujjwal Mishra for help. He
>promised to send help, but then cut the line without
>taking the address. The police never came. Late in the
>night, we along with the women and children in our
>neighborhood (around 20 persons) escaped in their
>Maruti van to my brother's house in Margao."
>
>Sheikh Brothers, who own nearly 10 shops in Sanvordem
>reveal that eight of their shops were completely
>destroyed by the mob, homes attacked and vehicles
>destroyed and burnt. "Everything happened before the
>police and they stood their helpless as if unwilling
>to help us. All pleas for help fell on deaf ears,"
>they added.
>
>Thankfully, an eye for an eye is not the motto of the
>minority community, who allege that just as Nero
>fiddled while Rome burned, in the same manner, Rane
>was busy attending functions even as Curchorem and
>Sanvordem was burning. "It is Congress government and
>it was the ruling government's job to protect us. In
>Congress raj if this is our fate, then what is the use
>of having Rane as the CM?  More than BJP and RSS, we
>blame Rane for the communal tension," alleged Ussein
>Gazi.
>
>  * People tried contacting DIG Ujjwal Mishra on Friday
>and Saturday for help. He promised help but never
>delivered.
>When they contacted CM Rane when mob was burning their
>cars and attacking homes, he said everything is under
>control. Later, he cut their calls abruptly.
>All Congress MLAs and MP's had only one answer, we
>have called DIG.
>
>* During a meeting at Margao, the minority community
>leaders criticized Rane and asked Digambar Kamat (who
>was present there) what he would do for them? He was
>absolutely silent.
>***********************
>WAITING TO CATCH THE TRAIN TO FREEDOM!
>  BY PREETU NAIR
>Preetu_nair at gomantaktimes.com
>MARGAO STATION: In March 2002, Gujarat burnt as
>bloodthirsty mobs attacked homes and killed innocent
>people. In March 2005, Goa is burning. Hundreds of
>people from the minority community are rendered
>homeless and jobless. The politics of hate is slowly
>threatening to erupt the fabric of a harmonious
>society and robust democracy that Goans have always
>been proud of.
>
>Scared that people who wrongly justified the burning
>of vehicles, destruction of shops and homes, all owned
>by the Minority community, by saying that armed people
>came from Bhatkal and Hubli, would also harm them
>without any rhyme or reason, they are leaving the
>state, which was their home for long.
>
>At 3.25 pm, the Margao railway station is packed with
>women in burkha, their children and men, all waiting
>to board Jan Shatabdi express bound for Mangalore.
>Somehow their scared and agonized looks were more
>chilling than the event itself. They were scared to
>talk and appeared withdrawn. There was shock and gloom
>prevailing all over.
>
>Well, they can't be really blamed, after all their
>homes were destroyed by the very people they knew.
>They also never thought that the homes of friends and
>neighbours would be shut for them during the riots due
>to fear of a backlash.
>
>As violence flared up in Curchorem and Sanvordem and
>politicians slowly made it an insider-outsider issue
>(to quote Leader of Opposition Manohar Parrikar: Heavy
>influx of migrants to the state was the cause of
>creation of social tension and disharmony), it has
>left a feeling of fear and mistrust. "We have been
>living in Goa since last 20 years and had a small shop
>at Curchorem. The mob dragged us out of the house and
>burnt our house. They destroyed our shop. We came to
>Goa to earn a living, not to spread communal
>disharmony. It hurts that even after living here for
>20 years, we still can't call Goa our home," said a
>person who was boarding the train to go to his
>hometown Bhatkal, who didn't wish to be named.
>
>Just as the train arrived at the platform at 3.32 pm,
>they eagerly boarded the train. Once in the train,
>they removed the burkha, breathed some fresh air and
>smiled in relief as they set out on a new journey.
>
>
>
>
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