Word: ahmadabad
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When Afsana, 18, a Muslim living just outside the Indian city of Ahmadabad, heard that a Muslim mob had torched a train carrying Hindus in the nearby town of Godhra, she knew what would come next: furious Hindus seeking revenge. And sure enough, her family soon spotted a mob nearing their home. The girl fled with her 5-year-old brother and hid in the home of Hindu neighbors. From the neighbors' roof, she saw her parents and her two elder brothers beaten, doused with gasoline and burned alive. Her four sisters, she says, were stripped, raped and killed...
Elsewhere in Ahmadabad, Congress Party politician Ahsan Jafri gave shelter to fellow Muslims in his home, part of a 16-house Muslim colony. When the mob came, Jafri fired his revolver, injuring a few attackers. Furious, the crowd tore into the colony, dragging out the residents and setting them ablaze. Jafri and his family died. In the Hindu mob was a schoolboy, Roshan, 12. From a safe distance, he claimed, he saw Jafri's daughters being stripped and raped. He sounded frightened but admiring. When he grew up, would he do that? "Maybe not rape," he said thoughtfully...
Prime Minister Vajpayee has since announced that in the future pilgrims will be stopped from reaching Ayodhya and workers banned from erecting a new temple there. Hindu extremists vowed that they were undeterred. In Ahmadabad, 1,300 Indian soldiers patrolled uneasy streets. The Muslim girl Afsana awoke in a hospital, with burns so severe she could not lie on her back. "Where will I go now?" she asked. "I had such a big family, and all of them are dead. I just wish I had someone to live...
When Afsana, an 18-year-old Muslim living on the outskirts of the Gujarati capital of Ahmadabad, heard last Wednesday that a Muslim mob had torched a train, the Sabarmati Express, at Godhra, she was appalled - and very, very frightened. She knew that revenge would be nigh. Her neighborhood, Naroda, is largely Hindu. On the day after the Godhra killings, local Hindu leaders gathered a crowd of 2,000 residents and gave them simple instructions: Muslims had to be destroyed. When part of the mob reached Afsana's house, she fled with her five-year-old brother to a Hindu...
There was not much time for grief. Mattresses lined the sidewalks of Ahmadabad, a city of some 5 million, where people were too scared of aftershocks to sleep indoors. Many were having trouble finding drinking water and food. Doctors were overwhelmed. Roads and bridges were damaged, slowing relief efforts. Many volunteers were forced to dig barehanded for survivors...