1000 Muslims Massacred: Killers Scotfree

"Do you have any information about Adam? It has been many years since I have seen him. Is he coming home?" asks 75-year-old Roshanbi, her tired and vacant eyes full of hope. Paralysed waist down due to the shock and resultant illness following her son's disappearance, Roshanbi mistakes journalists coming to her as officers who might give information about her son who disappeared on January 10, 1993 during the Mumbai riots.

For 13 years, Roshanbi has been sitting in a dark dingy passage leading to her squalid hutment, near Hari Masjid waiting for her son. Mohammed Adam Hassan, around 30 then, was among the 60 youths rounded up at the Hari Masjid area during the riots. Most of them came back. Adam did not. He is am-ong the 168 officially missing.

According to the Srikrishna Commission Report which investigated the 1992-93 riots, the police made namaazis of Hari Masjid stand in a line and forced one Adam and another person to pick up dead bodies (after the police shot dead seven of them reportedly for rioting) and put them in vehicles. Later, he was taken by the police along with other youths. He never returned.
"It is surprising that the police claimed to have fired in order to save violent clashes. There were no injury marks nor were there any mobs," says advocate Zia-ul-Mustafa who has been fighting the cases for those who were charged from the Hari Masjid area.

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Woman Cop Highlights: Police Abuse Of Adivasi Girls

In light of this, the revelations by Dongre are important. Before her post was taken down, it was shared widely on social media — much to the chagrin of police authorities in the state. As a result, the state has ordered a probe against her for raising these concerns on a public platform like Facebook. A senior government official said, “The CM (Raman Singh) had also asked officials to refrain from making such personal remarks.”

Following armed attacks in Sukma district that killed 35 CRPF soldiers in April, Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh has called for a meeting on May 5 to build a comprehensive strategy for a counter-attack in the region. Dongre’s comments are simply another side of the same coin because they highlight the larger situation in which human rights abuses against Adivasi people take place. In the now-deleted post, Dongre had written: “The truth is that all natural and mineral resources are in these forests, which industrialists and capitalists have to empty out in order to sell.”

She goes on to comment on what the Adivasi community in Chhattisgarh must go through because of this: “They want Naxalism to end, but the way that the protectors of the nation abuse their daughters and daughters-in-law, the way they are burning their houses, filing false complaints against them so they are sent to rot in prison… where will they go to get justice? Don’t take my word for it, the CBI reports say this, the Supreme Court says this, this is the ground reality.“

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Vigilantes terrorism in India

On April 21, five members of a family, including a 9-year-old girl, were seriously injured in an attack by a large, illegal gau rakshak (“cow protection”) vigilante group in the Reasi district of Jammu & Kashmir. The nomadic tribal people were herding their livestock, including 16 cows and calves, when they were intercepted near the Talwara area and assaulted with iron rods.

The group belonged to two important front organisations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volutereeer Association) and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The tribesmen reported that the attackers absconded with their goats, sheep and cows. The nine-year-old girl suffered multiple fractures and one of the children went missing. Even the elders were beaten up. Their attackers also threatened to throw them into a nearby river.

Jammu & Kashmir is home to a large number of nomadic tribal herder groups that travel between Jammu’s Himalayan mountains every year for grazing.

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