POTO bill defeated in Rajya Sabha: Fresh Gujarat riots claim five lives
By Jawed Naqvi
NEW DELHI, March 21: Five people were killed in widespread communal skirmishes in Gujarat on Thursday, including two shot dead by police, as Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government lost a key parliamentary vote and faced threats of a showdown from close coalition allies all angered by his inability to rein in rightwing Hindu groups.
The government was defeated by 98 to 87 votes in a Congress-party sponsored vote against the POTO anti-terrorist bill in the Rajya Sabha, making it imminent for Mr Vajpayee to call a joint sitting of the parliament’s two houses to pass the bill. The joint meeting is expected on Friday and will be the third time in India parliament’s history that a joint session will decide a key vote.
Reports from Gujarat said five persons were killed in renewed violence in Ahmedabad on Thursday in the biggest eruption of violence seen in the walled city area since the riots began three weeks back. Two persons were killed in police firing in Kalupur, two others in private gun battles while one stabbed to death in sporadic incidents of violence in the Dariapur, Karanj and Shahpur areas.
At least 19 persons were injured and a different pattern of violence surfaced at Kalupur, which was placed under curfew once again, where an army soldier, widely trusted by Muslims, was shot at in the leg from a private weapon during the rioting. Almost 50 shops in Revdi Bazaar, the main wholesale cloth market of the city, were burnt down by mobs. Curfew was imposed in Kalupur after incidents of stabbing and stone throwing on Relief Road.
Police fired at the clashing groups of people as fresh bouts of panic gripped the eastern parts of the city once again. Rioters damaged a shoe store in the Gheekanta area and burnt a cabin in the Bakal Ni Wadi area.
While the state government tried to paint its performance as salutary in handling the anti-Muslim pogroms, the National Human Rights Commission has rejected the Gujarat report on the recent violence in the state. NHRC chairman Justice J.S. Verma told reporters in Ahmedabad on Thursday that there was a “general feeling of insecurity” and “normalcy has not yet been restored” in the state. He said that although the state government had submitted a preliminary report, he had asked it to supply more information “which is not yet provided”.
He, however, refused to say when the new report had to be submitted or, if any specific time-frame had been given to the government to supply information.
Commenting on allegations that the NHRC was paying more heed to the minorities and therefore the victims of the majority community, who felt left out, had mobbed up the commission on Wednesday, Justice Verma said: “We have given as much time as was needed. There was an open house in the afternoon (Wednesday).”
He declined to comment on allegations that the NHRC had given an appointment to the people living at the Saryunath camp to come for representation but did not hear them. “I did not invite anyone here, they came on their own.”
Elaborating on what the NHRC has done so far, he said the commission had taken suo motu cognizance of the reports published in the media. The commission was keeping a tab on the shaping of the events right from “the Godhra incident...which was indeed shameful...then the chain reaction that followed and then the continuous process... But we have not and will form opinion only after hearing every one.”
The Samata Party of Defence Minister George Fernandes became a surprise turncoat member of the group of Vajpayee’s allies who expressed their anger on Thursday at the rightwing Hindu groups who all sit as Bharatiya Janata Party MPs in parliament, but otherwise masquerade as RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal.
Reports said the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s latest plan to carry the ashes of those who were killed in the Godhra train violence across the country had triggered fresh tensions within the allies of the BJP. The allies say they will hold a separate meeting and then demand a crackdown on any such plan from the government.
They said Holi and Muharram were approaching fast and they expect the prime minister to send a signal of firmness to prevent any mischief. Demanding a ban on the VHP, the Opposition has blamed the government for not taking adequate action against the outfit, which was provoking communal tensions.
The ruling front, in turn, blamed the Congress for fuelling trouble in Godhra. Raising the issue, former premier H.D. Deve Gowda appealed to the prime minister and the home minister to take immediate steps to halt the VHP asthi yatra.
“Is such a yatra going to help? Is it not going to create an atmosphere that can be detrimental to peace and communal harmony?” he asked observing that sufficient damage had already been caused to relations between Hindus and Muslims.
Signalling its disenchantment with the Vajpayee government, the VHP said the country urgently required a government which would look after the interests of Hindus, since the BJP was under pressure from its “so-called secular” allies in the NDA.
“The cause of the Hindus could not be served in the present political scenario,” said VHP senior general secretary Acharya Giriraj Kishore at the end of a two-day meeting of the VHP office bearers in Ayodhya.
Kishore also said that the VHP would soon launch a country-wide Hindu jagran and dharam jagran programme in the rural areas.
