Allegations are being levelled in the minority circles in Ahmedabad that there was a distinct pattern of "communal cleansing" in the recent riots in Gujarat. The manner in which the people of minority community, irrespective of their economic status, were attacked first raised suspicion about systematic misuse of voters list to identify and target them.
Similarly, according to the victims, the licence and other relavant papers from the civic bodies were used to target the hotels and other business establishments owned by them. "All my five hotels including Renbasera' meant for poor people were attacked, while three other hotels still stood," said a hotelier, who claims to have known Chief Minister Narendra Modi since his school days.
There have been other such instances. According to some minority community people, during break-out of commual violence in the past also majority community hardliners had tried to get the minority community people ousted from colonies like Meghaninagar. "They succeeded to a large extent in 1985 violence, yet the posh Gulmohor Society was ours. Now, that's also gone," says one of them.
Many minority community people alleged that the voters' list was virtually used as a killing tool as the mob, apparently angered over the Godhra massacre, went around different localities including in Ahmedabad, as part of "cleansing operation".
"They hardly failed in laying their hands on their target, thanks to the documents like voters' list," said a police official adding "the mission was accomplished with a clinical precision". This is for the "first time in the country" violence was carried out using documents like this, said the senior cop on condition of anonymity.
"We saw ethnic problems in Assam or in Bhagalpur, but this kind of precision was not known elsewhere," he said. However, others say, "this game of using documents" was "not a Gujarati invention". "In Jammu and Kashmir, it was tried and tested in a more refined manner. Poor pandits just had to quit the state," said a local resident in one of the sensitive colonies apparently showing his approval for the violence.
"The voters' list has certainly made their task easier and the motivated mob knew exactly who stayed where," said a woman inmate at Sanklitpur relief camp in Johopura.
Several eateries even with secular names like 'Kabir' and 'Millennium' were damaged. Even business establishments run by minority community members in partnership with members of majority community were attacked. "The message for majority community people friendly with minority people was clear - do not do business with them," said Ibbal Tadah, a minority community insurance surveyor in Johapura area.
"Loot was carried out apparently driven by greed but there was an added refrain that they were looting the properties of the minority people," says Rafiqa Banu of Naroda area, whose four children were charred to death and one daughter was seriously injured in a blaze.
There is another point of suspicion of alleged state "connivance", as alleged by Congress and other opposition parties, reflected in the traffic police virtually staying away from the roads on February 28.
A senior police official's reaction on this front has been quite terse. "What did you expect, when the state's regular police force could not put a check on the arsonists, do you think my men could have done that just by whistling around," asked the senior officer.
Similarly, the fire brigade was also hardly in action even in Ahmedabad when the city was burning. In many a place, places of worship were razed to the ground and houses burnt, in locations hardly a stone's throw away from police stations or other police installations. There has been a definite pattern in the movement of population following every riot. "Each majority community pocket is becoming more and more concentrated with their own people, while the story is same for each minority community location," a police official said.
