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| Anand Agrawal | Posted
on 15-Dec-02 12:33 PM
ARMY CHARGED WITH MURDER Kantipur Online, 12 December 2002 NUWAKOT, Dec 12 - Bereaved family members of five minors, killed in an army action, filed a joint complaint at the district administration office in Bidur, the district headquarters of Nuwakot, seeking compensation for the deaths of their children on Wednesday. The family members claimed that the schoolboys were shot dead by the army at Bruhanko of Kahule Village Development Committee (VDC), while returning to their homes, after performing the last rites of their relative on November 27. Those killed in the security action were studying at grade eight, seven, six, five and four. "The boys were unaware of the army presence in the village and were innocent. The entire village is shocked and terrified following their murder by the army," the complaint stated. In its press statement, the Defence Ministry, however, claimed that they were "terrorists" and killed in an "encounter". "We came to know that the army killed our own brothers and sons, when the soldiers ordered us next day to go to the site with spades and shovels to bury the dead," said Kale Tamang, the brother of deceased Pariman. "Not only my brother was shot dead, his leg was also found to have been chopped off," he added. The family members, quoting the security personnel, said that they shot them dead because they were walking at night with torch-lights in their hands. Talking to Kantipur Online, former lawmaker Mahendra Bahadur Pande said that the government should provide them compensation. "If the government refuses to take responsibility of the incident, the situation will take an ugly turn." |
| bipin | Posted
on 15-Dec-02 01:07 PM
http://www.ektaonline.org/ THE GUJARAT MASSACRES: THE COST OF SILENCE download pdf The state of Gujarat in India once renowned as the home of the peace activist, Mahatma Gandhi, is today home to over 100,000 victims of recent communal violence, most of them Muslims. Of these numbers, over 2000 were brutalized and killed in every way imaginable and in ways till now unimaginable--stoned; burned alive with kerosene; stabbed; butchered; raped and burned; and, raped and cut open with fetuses removed, displayed on a tip of a sword and then discarded in fires. The unfortunate survivors that witnessed entire families erased continue to suffer in over-crowded make-shift relief camps and now face a different specter of death in the form of disease, an unrelenting heat wave, the approaching monsoon, and starvation. The violence in Gujarat began soon after an incident on February 27, 2002, when the Sabarmati Express was stopped near Godhra and several compartments were torched leading to the death of 58 Hindu passengers, including women and children. While conflicting reports exist about the exact sequence of events, it is clear that a confrontation between Hindutva activists returning from the controversial site of Ayodhya and the mainly Muslim residents of Godhra escalated to the point of the train being deliberately set on fire. What ensued in the wake of the heinous attack on the Sabarmati Express was a state-wide retaliatory carnage of unimaginable proportions the social, psychological and economical damages of which defy quantification. Immediately following the train incident at Godhra, frenzied Hindu mobs across the state of Gujarat unleashed their fury on the Muslim population by brutalizing and obliterating entire families and neighborhoods, looting their property, and destroying places of worship. To date, the numbers are as follows: over 2000 dead and buried in mass graves, over 100,000 in inadequate relief camps, and an estimated Rs. 10, 000 crore ($2 billion) in property damage. The unaccounted damage to the people of Gujarat as a whole, to the cause of communal harmony, and to India as a nation far exceeds these numbers. As NGOs and activists for communal harmony seek ways to bring relief and justice to the victims of the Gujarat massacre, fact-finding reports point to the following critical findings: State participation and complicity in communal violence in Gujarat: The rest can be found in the link. |