NEW DELHI, April 5: Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s plea for an end to communal bloodshed in Gujarat failed to pacify opposition leaders who demanded on Friday he sack the state’s chief minister to restore trust among Muslims.
The Congress said Vajpayee struck the right chord on Thursday during his visit to Gujarat, where more than 820 people, mostly Muslims, have died since February, but his words needed to be backed with tough action against Hindu hardliners.
“The prime minister made the right gesture...produced some temporary psychological relief to the victims but he has not addressed the basic problem — which is the crisis of faith,” Congress spokesman Jaipal Reddy said.
He said the opposition would not rest until he removed chief minister Narendra Modi, accused by critics of turning a blind eye to the mayhem when it was at its peak and not doing enough for survivors of India’s worst bloodbath in a decade.
Modi has denied the accusations.
“Unless he is given marching orders, whatever the prime minister says will sound vacuous,” Reddy said. “We have deep distrust in the sectarian neutrality of the Gujarat state government apparatus under Mr Modi.”
The Indian leader, on his first trip to Gujarat since the violence erupted on Feb 27, had said he was pained by the continuing bloodshed.
“How can I show my face abroad..this insanity cannot be allowed to continue,” he told riot victims at a makeshift relief camp in Ahmedabad.
Survivors of the violence at a makeshift relief centre at an Ahmedabad mosque were sceptical that Vajpayee’s visit could do any good.
“I don’t believe in the promises of the government,” said Jamal Abdin, a vegetable vendor whose wife, three-month-old baby boy and four-year-old girl were burnt alive by a Hindu mob.
More than 100,000 traumatized riot victims are crammed into over 100 shelters across the state where relief workers say sanitation conditions are appalling.
Majma Begum Quereshi, who lost her two children and house in an arson attack by a Hindu mob, said she did not know whether she could collect the 150,000-rupee compensation offered by the government to people who lost relatives in the riots.
“Even if the government is going to give us compensation, they’re certain to ask for proof and we’ve no proof left we had children,” said Quereshi, whose husband is in hospital with burn injuries.
TEMPORARY RELIEF: Opposition groups have accused Vajpayee’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and its hardline Hindu affiliates of a deep-seated bias against India’s 120 million Muslims.
A senior Communist Party leader, D. Raja, said Vajpayee’s visit — five weeks after the bloodshed erupted — came too late and called it a “well-crafted public relations exercise”.
Vajpayee has faced heavy pressure from powerful Hindu groups, including the BJP’s ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, not to bow to opposition demands for Modi’s removal.—Reuters