The Government's Failure to Redress Massacres in Gujarat
The ringleaders of massacres committed in 2002 are still roaming free in Gujarat, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report. The 70-page report, Compounding Injustice: The Government's Failure to Redress Massacres in Gujarat, examines the record of state authorities in holding perpetrators accountable and providing humanitarian relief to victims of state-supported massacres of Muslims in February and March 2002. Human Rights Watch urged the federal government to take over cases of large-scale massacres where the state government has sabotaged investigations. More than one hundred Muslims have been charged under India's much-criticized Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) for their alleged involvement in the train massacre in Godhra. No Hindus have been charged under POTA in connection with the violence against Muslims, which the government continues to dismiss as spontaneous and unorganized. Although the Indian government initially boasted of thousands of arrests following the attacks, most of those arrested have since been acquitted, released on bail with no further action taken, or simply let go. Police regularly downgrade serious charges to lesser crimes - from murder or rape to rioting, for example - and alter victims' statements to delete the names of the accused. Even when cases reach trial, Muslim victims face biased prosecutors and judges. Hindu and Muslim lawyers representing Muslim victims, and doctors providing medical relief to them, have also faced harassment and threats.
ISBN: 1504C
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- I. Summary
- II. Main Recommendations to Indian Authorities
- III. Background to the Violence
- IV. Impunity for Attacks against Muslims
- V. Police Shootings and False Charges against Victims
- VI. The Godhra Investigation
- VII. Attack on Akshardham
- VIII.VIII. Inadequate Relief to Victims
- IX. Lack of Government Compensation for Victims
- X. Economic Marginalization of Muslims
- XI.Xi. Communalism as a Political Strategy
- XII. Recommendations to Indian Authorities and the International Community
- Acknowledgments





