September 3, 2003	Wednesday	Rajab 5, 1424

AHMEDABAD, Sept 2: Muslims in the western Indian state of Gujarat held a general strike on Tuesday to protest against alleged harassment by the police since last year’s militant attack on a Hindu temple here in which 46 people were killed.

A week ago, Gujarat police arrested five Muslims and claimed it had solved the case of the Akshardham temple attack that ocurred on September 24 last year.

Police said the plan to attack the temple was made in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh and the five suspects had helped militants carry out the assault.

However, on Monday, media reports, quoting Kashmir police officials, said the attack was planned in the Anantnag district of the state.

Enraged by these conflicting reports, Muslim organisations in Ahmedabad accused the Gujarat police of unjustly arresting the five men and called for a protest strike on Tuesday.

Most Muslim-owned shops closed their doors in support of the protest.

“We called the strike today to protest against the manner which our community is being targeted by the police and Gujarat government,” said Wasif Pathan, public relation officer of the Women Welfare Society, a Muslim trust.

“Innocent people are being arrested under false allegations. Every shop belonging to our community remained closed today.”

Pathan said no one Muslim organization was taking responsibility for the strike because of the fear that the police could target it.

“It was a strike by the entire Muslim community,” he said.

Family members of the arrested men denied any militant activities.

“All charges against my husband are false,” said Nasimbanu Adam Ajmeri, 30, the wife of one of the five men who has been accused of driving one of the two militants to the temple in his rickshaw.

“We are so poor that we have to borrow from our neighbours to get by. If he was involved with militant outfits, do you think, we would be such a condition?”

Nasimbanu said her husband has been in custody since August 9 and every time she talked to the police about his release, they would tell her that he would be released soon.

“The police told us that my husband had been picked up for interrogation and that we should not talk to anybody or hire a lawyer or they would inflict charges on him which would keep him behind the bars for more than 20 years,” she said.

The organisers of the strike also said the strike was to protest against the police handling of cases relating to last year’s riots in which nearly 2,000 people were killed, most of them Muslims.

The clashes were triggered after a mob believed to be made up of Muslims burnt to death 59 Hindus in a train coach in Godhra town.

Several Muslims have since been arrested for the Godhra carnage, many of them booked under India’s Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).

Ahmed Hussain Ismail Mansuri, father of another man arrested for the temple attack who the police said had written a letter in the Persian language found on one of militants, said his son was taken in because he was involved in charity and social service work for the Muslims and other communities.

“We are not extremists. My son runs a hospital trust, which has majority Hindus doctors,” he said.

“He is being targeted only because of the good work that he is doing for our community. Also, it has not yet been established by handwriting experts that my son’s handwriting matches with the one in the letter.”—AFP