“It was not simply the number of lives lost, though the number — perhaps 2,500 — is not insignificant. It was the cold-blooded manner in which they were taken. It was not simply that 19 of Gujarat’s 25 districts burned while Neros watched, fiddled and smir-ked, but the sinister similarity in the way they were set alight,” said activist Teesta Setalvad, also the secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace.
Setalvad was speaking at a workshop and Public Meeting focusing on the denial of justice in the aftermath of the genocidal killings in Delhi (1984), Mumbai (1992), Kandhamal (2009) and Gujurat (2002) at the St. Xavier’s College, where an exhibition portraying pictures of violence has been set-up.
She further added, “Militias were armed with deadly training, weapons, technology and equipment; with a lethal brew of deadly intent, inspired by constructed tales of hate, using the February 28, 2002 edition of a leading Gujarati daily that urged revenge; all combined with a white chemical powder that seared to burn and destroy already killed bodies. And, of course, truckloads of gas cylinders, in short supply for cooking, were used instead to blast mosques and homes. Part of the plan was to humiliate, destroy and then kill. Another was to economically cripple. But at heart, the desire was to construct a reality whereby a whole ten per cent of the population lives (and a few even prosper) as carefully whipped into shape, second-class citizens.”
Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, Founding Chairman of Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, said, “It seems quite a stale topic as we know how police behaves during communal disturbances or even before and after that. Recently, the Prime Minister also expressed serious concern about increasing incidents of communal violence.
When the Prime Minister expresses concern and draws their attention to a problem, it could be nothing but very serious indeed.”