June 7, 2002	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 25,1423

WASHINGTON, June 6: The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has decided to hold a hearing to examine fresh evidence suggesting that recent communal violence in the Indian state of Gujarat, in which at least 1,000 Muslims have been killed, was carefully planned and involved the state government’s officials and police.

Announcing the hearing, due to take place on June 10, the commission’s chairman, Michael Young, said the commission was “very concerned that the United States government has not spoken out forcefully against the attacks on Muslims in Gujarat”, which threatened to exacerbate tensions between India and Pakistan.

There is a widely held belief in Pakistani circles that the Indian move to mass troops on the border with Pakistan and precipitate a crisis in the subcontinent is meant at least partly to divert attention from the Gujarat massacres.

Although the US commission, which reports to the administration and Congress, had previously commented on the Gujarat killings, most recently in its May 2001 annual report, it has apparently felt compelled by new evidence to take a stronger stand. It states that recent reports implicate the government of Gujarat and some members of the police force in the violence in Gujarat.

According to India’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), an official body, the events leading up to the Godhra tragedy and the killings and destruction that followed were marked by a “serious failure of intelligence and inaction by the [Gujarat] state government.”

The NHRC noted that there are “media reports attributing certain statements to the sate police commissioner and even the chief minister which, if true, raise serious questions”.

The NHRC also noted “widespread reports and allegations of well-organized persons, armed with mobile telephones and addresses, singling out certain homes and properties for death and destruction in certain districts, sometimes within view of police stations and personnel,” suggesting the attacks may have been planned in advance.

The US commission pointed out that Indian officials had publicly reported that 443 “major communal incidents” had occurred in Gujarat since 1970. Given the region’s history, the number of deaths and other reported abuses, the reported impunity of perpetrators of such violence poses a continuing threat of recurrence.

In 2001, the US commission said, although reports did not implicate the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in organizing or carrying out violence against Christian and Muslim religious minorities (which has grown since the BJP came into office nationally), there was serious concern that the central government was not doing all that it could to pursue and punish the perpetrators of the attacks and to counteract the prevailing climate of hostility, in some quarters in India, against these minority groups.

In its hearing scheduled for June 10, the commission, created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to give independent recommendations to the executive branch and the Congress on policies to promote international religious freedom, will consider the Indian human rights report and other evidence.