NEW DELHI, March 10: A United Nations human rights team led by Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Asma Jahangir, visited the Indian state of Gujarat on Sunday to oversee the relief and rehabilitation of victims of the communal violence there in 2002, the Hindu said on Monday.
Her meeting with Chief Minister Narendra Modi and a photograph in the Hindu in which she is seen warmly accepting a memento from him on Sunday was the subject of discussion among her Indian supporters, mostly from the left and liberal corner.
The Hindu report in which she was quoted as describing the visit as a “pleasant one”, evident did not end their concerns. Ms Jahangir could not be reached for comment.“Initially I thought it was strange for her to meet Modi,” said an activist who has been associated with anti-nuclear campaigns and India-Pakistan friendship forums of which Ms Jahangir has been a leading icon. “Then I said to myself, she is visiting Gujarat as a UN representative which very nearly entitles her to meet anyone in the government. So I stopped worrying” It was evidently in such a capacity that she met the state’s Director-General of Police P.C. Pandey in Gandhinagar.
The Hindu said Ms Jahangir, who had earlier met Kashmir’s government leaders and pro-freedom groups in Srinagar, attended meetings with the victims of the violence in Gujarat. She also went to makeshift camps where some of the affected families were still living. In Gujarat, she also visited the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram as well as the Sarkhej Roza, a famous shrine of the Muslims in Ahmedabad.
News agencies said the Pakistani rights campaigner on Sunday met activists in Ahmedabad who told her that the minorities in the state remained ignored by authorities.
At a meeting held under the aegis of the All-India Christian Council, they briefed Ms Jehangir about the problems faced by the minorities, especially in the aftermath of the 2002 communal violence in which at least 1,000 people were killed.
Muslims were being viewed with suspicion and madressahs were kept under watch under the pretext that they bred terrorism, they said.
Ms Jahangir arrived on a two-day visit to Gujarat on Saturday in her capacity as UN rapporteur. Father Cedric Prakash, a rights activist, in a letter to Ms Jahangir, alleged there was still palpable animosity against the minorities, especially Muslims and Christians.
