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Written by Teesta Setalvad
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Tuesday, 09 May 2006 |
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Page 1 of 2
Teesta Setalvad, Times of India, 5 May, 2006
Thirty-eight-year-old Rafik Abdul Ghani Vohra was set upon by a mob, led by Ashok Thakur and other well-known VHP activists, and burnt to death in his car, at Ajwa Road, while returning from Gujarat Refineries on May 2.
The 1,000-strong mob gathered at Ajwa Road — unstopped by the police despite curfew — for two hours or so before the attack took place. Despite repeated calls by his family and neighbours to the police control and Deepak Swaroop, commissioner of police (CP), Vadodara, a callous administration did not respond.
Some family members told the national media and television channels that when they did connect with the police, they were told 'to go to Pakistan'. Local social activists feel that the response of the CP, chief minister's office and state home secretary's office since the outbreak of violence was worse than in 2002.
The CP simply kept disconnecting his mobile, according to agitated residents and social activists who made over 200 calls while the mob was building up. But for pressure exercised by the government at the Centre, the Gujarat state, its executive and its administration would not have been compelled to act immediately, without fear or favour.
The trouble began in Vadodara on May 1, with the demolition launched by Vadodara municipal administration, aided by police, in violation of the 'compromise' formula worked between the administration and minorities that two and a half feet of the shrine were to be 'sacrificed' for 'deve-lopment'.
The shrine in question was the Dargah Hazrat Rashiuddin, a target of communal forces since 1969. At least 385 years old, its existence is recorded in the first city survey carried out by Sayaji Rao Maharaj in 1912.
On the morning of May 1, the police and corporation demolished the shrine and by afternoon in a swift military-like action even paved a road over it.
Ghastly memories of 2002 were invoked when over 270 minority shrines were destroyed in just the first six days of post-Godhra premeditated violence, including the Wali Dakhani's mazhar just outside the CP's office at Shahi Baug in Ahmedabad on March 1,
Ustad Faiz Khan's tomb in Vadodara also had its facade destroyed then. All signs of the remains of Wali Dakhani's tomb in Ahmedabad were removed by the wee hours of the next morning, again by politicians aided by the administration — a tar road was paved over the spot.
Four years later, in Vadodara, BJP leaders who are also VHP and Bajrang Dal office bearers, assisted the administration in paving a road over the destroyed shrine. Dargahs, or the mazars (graves) of Sufi saints are visited by worshippers belonging to different communities.
The mujawar (caretakers) are often Hindus. Dargahs are and have been for decades a threat to the narrow sectarian worldview of Hindu communalists. The fast-growing Muslim communal worldview also dislikes dargahs because they affect the 'purity' of Islam.
Haji Malang in Thane, north of Mumbai, and Baba Boudhangiri shrine in Chikmagalur district of Andhra Pradesh are two that have been targets of physical attacks by the wider conglomerate of the Hindu communalists.
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Friday, 22 August 2008
