annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 Gujarat
directed the State government to pay
compensation of Rs 1 lakh for custodial
death of Haji Mohd Nabuji Tentwala in
1995. The NHRC registered 32 custodial
deaths in 1999-2000, 38 in 2000-2001, 52
in 2001-2002 and 51 in 2002-2003 in
Gujarat. 3
However, major human rights
violations continued to revolve around the
Gujarat riots of February-March 2002 and
Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The
Supreme Court held the modern day Neros
responsible for the Gujarat riots while
transferring the trial of the Best Bakery
case from Gujarat to Maharashtra. While
the Supreme Court transferred a few cases
for trial outside of Gujarat, around half of
the communal violence cases i.e. 2,032 out
of 4,252 were closed down by Gujarat
Police after classifying them as “true but
undetected”. 4
The alleged encounter death of Ishrat
Jehan Shaikh, Javed, Jishan Johar, and
Amjadali Akbarali Rana alias Salim was
termed by Peoples Union for Civil
Liberties and other NGOs as “One more
encounter for Modi’s sake?” 5
Undertrials involved in the Godhra
carnage case alleged of harassment by jail
authorities during namaz and poor
medication inside the Sabarmati jail. Of
the 305 persons booked under Prevention
of Terrorism Act, 2002 for alleged
involvement in Gujarat riots and
subsequent crimes, only seven are
Hindus. 6 As the Congress-led United
Progressive Alliance reaffirmed to repeal
POTA, the Gujarat assembly adopted the
64
Gujarat Control of Organised Crime
(GUJCOC) Act and referred to President
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. 7
Human rights defenders whether
noted dancer Mallika Sarabhai, Teesta
Setalvad, Fr. Cedric Prakash or Shabnam
Hashmi faced harassment, intimidation
and physical attacks for either attempting
to provide justice to the victims of Gujarat
riots or for exposing the truth about the
riots. 8
Oppression of the Dalits continued
unabated in Gujarat. Stigmatization and
social boycott of the Dalit are common
irrespective of what positions they hold in
the government. 9
Despite failure to rehabilitate all the
dam oustees, mainly the indigenous/tribal
peoples, in Maharashtra and Madhya
Pradesh on 13 March 2004, the State
government of Gujarat cleared an
additional 10 metres for the Sardar Sarovar
dam in clear violation of the Supreme
Court order of 2000. 10 Although the
Narmada Control Authority’s website
shows ‘zero families’ for rehabilitation,
according to Narmada Bachao Andolan,
11,000 families remained to be resettled at
the current height of the dam at 110
metres. 11
II. Gujarat riots: An eye view on
mutilated justice
The modern-day ‘Neros’ were looking
elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent
children and helpless women were
burning, and were probably deliberating
how the perpetrators of the crime can be