By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Nov 21 2003 (IPS)

In a stinging rebuke to the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in western Gujarat state, India’s Supreme Court Friday indicated that it may order the transfer of cases relating to last year’s pogrom against the Muslim community outside the state in the interests of ensuring justice for the victims.

The apex court stayed proceedings in 10 cases dealing with some of the worst atrocities that have found their way to the courts despite a hostile BJP government in the state led by Chief Minister Narenda Modi.

The court has given the Modi government two weeks to show cause why the cases should not be transferred to some other state.

Modi, who is currently in the capital, refused to comment beyond saying that his government would study the court’s order before responding to it.

The tough order by a bench led by Chief Justice V N Khare came after the amicus curiae (friend of the court) Harish Salve, who earlier served as India’s solicitor general, pointed to serious lapses by the government prosecutors that resulted the granting of bail to several people accused of manslaughter.

Exasperated by the Gujarat government’s attitude, Khare said: ”How many times does the Gujarat government need to be lectured on this aspect? We thought the Gujarat government would be wiser now. This is a fit case for transferring the trials outside the state.”

Salve represented to the court that the state’s prosecutors had close links with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Forum, which is closely allied with the BJP and took a leading role in the pogrom.

The violence resulted in the deaths of more than 2,000 people, the destruction of millions of dollars worth of property belonging to the prosperous Muslim community in the state and the systematic rape of women.

Outside court Salve, who has asked for a transfer of the cases to neighbouring Maharashtra state, told reporters that there was need to eradicate ”a feeling that has crept in that some people (Muslims) will not get justice right or wrong”.

He added: ”In the judicial system, justice must not only be done but also be seen to be done.”

The Gujarat government’s bias was blatant right from the day when it paid 2,000 dollars as compensation for each Muslim killed in last year’s communal violence but then went ahead and paid twice that amount to the Hindus who died.

But for the intervention of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), many of the crimes committed late February and early March may never have seen the light of day thanks to continued harassment of the victims by the Gujarat administration.

In September, Salve had to seek Supreme Court intervention to stop the harassment by Gujarat officials of one of the many women raped by VHP mobs on Feb. 28, in revenge for the torching of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims from the temple city of Ayodhya in central Uttar Pradesh state.

More than 50 people were burnt alive in the attack by Muslim vendors at the Godhra station. Most of the victims had gone to Ayodhya to support the building of a temple on a site where activists of the VHP and the BJP supervised the razing of the 17th century Babri Masjid mosque.

Rather than booking the perpetrators of the atrocities that followed the Godhra incident, the Gujarat government has gone ahead and arrested some 250 people under anti-terrorist provisions that carry no bail. All the detainees are Muslims while not a single Hindu has so far been arrested for the violence.

”These illegal detentions have made Muslims too scared to lodge complaints against the openly partisan police,” said Sudha Pandey coordinator for the Society for Promotion of Rational Thinking (SPRAT) that is based in Ahmedabad city in Gujarat.

"Since not one of those held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) is Hindu, the message conveyed by the government is that all Muslims are terrorists, while all Hindus are virtuous,” said another SPRAT activist, asking not to be named.

In several cases, witnesses willing to depose before courts said they were intimidated by the police or influential politicians, according to SPRAT volunteers.

In one such case, a young woman who was witness to the burning down of a bakery – in which 14 people, mostly her close relations, were roasted alive – refused to testify in a special court and said she feared for her life.

In October, the Supreme Court ordered that the appointment of public prosecutors in what has come to be known as the Best Bakery case be handled by the attorney general of India, Soli Sorabjee.

The Supreme Court’s move to shift trial of the Best Bakery and other cases out of Gujarat has the support of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), a statutory body with enormous powers and headed by A S Anand, former chief justice of the apex court.

In separate petitions, the NHRC, which carried out its own investigations in Gujarat, said the trial of the Best Bakery and other cases had damaged the credibility of the justice delivery system and negated the human rights of the victims.

The commission said the violation of the right to fair trial was "not only a violation of the fundamental right under our constitution but also violative of the internationally recognised human rights".

Commented Dwaraknath Rath, convenor of the Movement for Secular Democracy: ”If the trials are conducted outside Gujarat the truth is bound to come out.”

Many consider the Gujarat pogrom a serious blot on India’s attempts to live up to its constitutional ideal of being a secular state in which the followers of all religions are treated equally. Vajpayee, who leads the BJP, has publicly called the violence an ”aberration”. The majority of India’s billion plus people follow the Hindu faith, but Muslims form a significantly large minority of 150 million people. This makes it the world’s second largest Muslim community after the faithful in Indonesia.

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