April 7, 2002	Sunday	Muharram 23, 1423

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited riot-torn Gujarat on Thursday, more than a month after a provincial government run by his pro-Hindu, Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) began a pogrom against minority Muslims. So far, at least a thousand people and nearly 100,000 others have become refugees in the anti-Muslim violence.

Significantly, Vajpayee’s first halt on the well-televised, day-long visit was Godhra. His next stop was the Shah Alam camp in Ahmedabad, where he sought to assure some 10,000 Muslims that “the entire country was with them”. He said it was “heart-wrenching that people should become refugees in their own country. What happened at Godhra was shameful but what happened afterwards was worse. There is no other way.” At the Shah Alam camp, Vajpayee said, “In this country we burn dead bodies not living people. “

News of Vajpayee’s visit failed to stop the pogrom and two Muslim families were immolated in Abasana village, 85km from Ahmedabad, on Wednesday. News reports said five people were killed in Abasana on Wednesday and a sixth died of burn injuries later in hospital.

Vajpayee was expected to announce a relief package for the survivors, but critics said that whatever he did or said would be too little and too late. For over a month, Vajpayee appeared paralysed by pressure from Hindu fundamentalist groups that back his party and failed to intervene in Gujarat.

He failed to react when Gujarat’s chief minister announced $1000 as relief for the families of those who died at Godhra and half that amount for the victims of the violence that followed. He also ordered the transfer of conscientious police officials who tried to stop mobs attacking Muslim homes and businesses.

Opposition parties that visited Gujarat in March demanded in Parliament the sacking of Modi, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, best known for military-style drills and an attitude that Muslims and other minority groups must remain subservient to the Hindu majority in this country of one billion people.

It took a visit to Gujarat by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), and a stinging report submitted by its chairman A K Varma that indicted Modi’s government, before Vajpayee chose to visit the scene of what has been described as ruthless ethnic cleansing.

Varma, in his report submitted to Vajpayee on Monday, accused Modi’s government with “serious failure of intelligence”. He told reporters separately that by intelligence he meant both literal and figurative. Noting that the police and administration in Gujarat was being “influenced by extraneous considerations or players,” the NHRC called for investigation into what really happened at Godhra to be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

According to some newspaper reports, the Godhra incident was triggered by boisterous “kar sevaks” (Hindu religious volunteers) teasing Muslim women at railway stations that they passed through on their way to and from Ayodhya. Varma said