..VII. IMPUNITY IN THE AFTERMATH

Even as attacks continued to occur six weeks after the Godhra attacks, the Gujarat state administration was engaged in a massive cover-up of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad's extensive involvement. The state government's claims to have arrested 2,500 people in early March in connection to post-Godhra violence were undermined by reports claiming that no BJP, VHP, or Bajrang Dal activists were among those arrested. Police officials have either refused to name them in the police reports-FIRs-or under pressure from the state administration have booked some under less serious charges.²²² Many police officers who have pursued charges against leaders of the attacks on Muslims, or those who tried to maintain law and order during the attacks, have since been transferred. Muslims in the state have been denied equal protection of the law and continue to be arbitrarily detained and booked on false charges following combing operations in Muslim neighborhoods.  

Detaining Muslim Youth 

The arbitrary detention and filing of false charges against Muslim youth during and after the initial attacks in Gujarat remains largely unchecked. An attorney working in Vadodara and Ahmedabad told Human Rights Watch that the detention and filing of false charges against Muslims was rampant in these cities.²³⁵ When Human Rights Watch asked residents of Chartoda Kabristan camp if they had been able to go home since arriving at the camp, one male teenager responded, "The government is with the VHP and the Bajrang Dal. They are combing our areas. If we go back there, to our homes, the police fire on them, and take them to jail to show that they have arrested people."²³⁶

The police surrounded us. Some children had run inside the mosque for protection. The police pulled me out, slapped me, and hit me with the butt of their gun twice. They asked me for keys to the inside room and I said I didn't have them so they hit me again. Then they grabbed the boys and took them and beat them. There were ten or twelve of them. They left me behind. Those boys were arrested and have not returned. Five people were killed here in police firing, those cases have been filed against the boys that they took.²³⁷

They were among twenty-six Muslim youth arrested between February 28 and March 1 and taken to the area police station before being transferred to the central station. One resident involved in following the legal proceedings told Human Rights Watch about the nature of cases filed against them: "A woman named Jainab was burned alive here by the police and the RSS. That case is on our boys under Section 302 [murder] of the Indian Penal Code and there are many other charges against them. They were hiding in the mosque and they arrested them."²³⁸ 

A Citizens' Initiative report on violence against women in Gujarat found that in Millat Nagar, a neighborhood then-under curfew in Ahmedabad, "under the guise of `combing operations' the Police are picking up young Muslim boys at random. Mothers live in constant fear.... So acute is this fear of the Police that even for small tasks to be done outside the home women venture out more rather than men. No one knows why and under what charge these young men are being arrested."²³⁹  

A People's Union for Civil Liberties report on violence against women in Vadodara, Gujarat, also documents numerous instances of police abuse against women during house to house searches ("combing operations") in which male family members were beaten and arrested by the police.²⁴⁰ 

Even a Muslim member of the Gujarat legislative assembly was falsely implicated in an FIR. According to a report by the Asian Age, Faroukh Sheikh, a Congress MLA [member of legislative assembly] representing the sensitive Dariapur area, was named in an FIR charging him with leading a mob to assault Hindu business establishments in Sindh Bazaar and Revdi Bazaar (see section on Attacks on Hindus). Sheikh was in fact in the state assembly that day.²⁴¹  

²²² Robin David and Leena Misra, "Legal experts fear manipulation of FIRs," Times of India, March 26, 2002.  

²³⁵ Human Rights Watch interview, attorney M.D., Ahmedabad, March 23, 2002.  

²³⁶ Human Rights Watch interview, sixteen-year-old male resident of Chartoda Kabristan camp, Ahmedabad, March 23, 2002.  

²³⁷ Human Rights Watch interview, Chotti Masjid mullana, Ahmedabad, March 23, 2002.  

²³⁸ Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld), Ahmedabad, March 23, 2002. Other charges filed against the Muslim youth include: obstructing a public servant in the discharge of his public functions (IPC, Sec. 186); disobedience to an order duly promulgated by a public servant (IPC, Sec. 188); voluntarily causing hurt to deter a public servant from his duty (IPC, Sec. 332); causing hurt by endangering the life or personal safety of others (IPC, Sec. 337); assault, or the use of criminal force to deter a public servant from discharge of his duty (IPC, Sec. 353); and mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house, etc. (IPC, Sec. 436). Section 135 of the Bombay Police Act, which authorizes arrest and punishment for violations of Section 37 that permits police to prohibit various kinds of public assembly, was also invoked. The pattern is not unique to Gujarat. A study undertaken by former Inspector General (Border Security Force) Vibhuti Narain Rai on police neutrality during communal riots found that "even in riots where the number of Muslims killed was many times more than the Hindus, it was they who were mainly arrested, most searches were conducted in their houses, and curfew imposed in a harsher manner in their localities. This observation holds good for even those riots where almost [all those] killed were Muslims" (emphasis in original). Asia-Pacific Human Rights Network, "Gujarat riots point to need for police reform."  

²³⁹ Citizens' Initiative, "The Survivors Speak." 

²⁴⁰ People's Union Civil Liberties, "Women's Perspectives."  

²⁴¹ "FIR says Muslim MLA led riot mob," Asian Age, March 23, 2002.