Word: gujarat
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...India: Gujarat Still Bleeds Thailand: Mysterious Cop Killings China: Is Beijing Irrelevant? Indonesia: Justice, Jakarta-style...
...That was the season when hundreds of people in the western state of Gujarat were killed in India's worst Hindu-Muslim clashes in a decade. The killings began on Feb. 27; after 72 hours of complete mayhem, violence continued to flare for almost six weeks. The unofficial death toll now exceeds 2,000, and the vast majority of the dead are Muslims. Women's groups and human-rights organizations like the Citizen's Initiative have published scores of testimonies from eyewitnesses claiming that women were gang-raped. Tens of thousands of Muslims fled their homes to more than...
...July, virtually all of those camps were shut down and some survivors are now coming home. As Meher-un-nissa and her friends walk around their village of Pandarwada in eastern Gujarat, they pass the charred ruins that were their homes and the canvas tents they are now forced to occupy. Encountering an elderly Hindu lady, the children fall silent, waiting for a smile or a nod?the usual greeting in a village where everyone knows one another. But the woman refuses to acknowledge them. The local mosque has been destroyed, and someone has scrawled on a nearby wall...
...Gujarat's wounds should be slowly healing. Instead, new injuries are being inflicted daily. Muslims brave enough to come back are finding they're not welcome even in towns and villages they've called home for generations. Many have been told that their only chance of regaining a normal life is to withdraw accusations of rape and murder against their neighbors. Pandarwada is a typical case. In March, the marauding mobs tried to shield their faces but were recognized anyway, and some 90 criminal complaints have been filed, though no arrests have yet been made. Headman Anilbhai Manubhai Modi...
...Adding political insult to injury, Gujarat's top politician, Chief Minister Narendra Modi, dissolved the local legislature in mid-July and called for early elections?to cash in, his political opponents allege, on support from the majority Hindu population in the wake of the violence. (89.5% of the state's population is Hindu and just 8.5% Muslim.) That provoked an uproar in New Delhi's Parliament last week, as the opposition accused the ruling party of backing Modi, the leader of the Gujarat BJP. But Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani did not relent. "You abuse a Chief Minister...