Fear Persists In Gujarat State
Mariam Bivi's 18-year-old, polio-stricken son was burned to death by a Hindu mob.
Since her son was killed, all the 45-year-old Muslim woman has wanted to do is flee Gujarat state's main city, Ahmedabad, where she has lived for 40 years. She says she can't stop thinking about him begging his killers for mercy.
More than 750 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in a wave of brutality in Gujarat after a Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu devotees, killing 59 in late February.
Muslims crammed into some 100 relief camps across Gujarat say they want to leave the state and escape their memories of adults, children - even babies - being burnt, clubbed and hacked to death by Hindu gangs.
"If I stay here, I'll never be able to get over the pain of losing my son," Bivi said. "Maybe another place, other people could help me start a new life."
Thousands have already fled Gujarat since India's worst religious violence in a decade erupted on Feb. 27, relief workers say. Relief workers say the departure plays into the hands of hard-line Hindu groups. An estimated 90 percent of Gujarat's 51 million people are Hindu and nine percent are Muslim.
"The idea … was to drive Muslims out of Hindu neighborhoods, or the state, once and for all," said Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit priest and director of the Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace.
The violence has ebbed somewhat, but authorities say rebuilding trust between Muslims and Hindus will be difficult.
"It will be a hard task to discourage Muslims from leaving Gujarat," a senior Gujarat minister said.
Relief workers say there are attempts by hard-line Hindu groups such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal to frighten people away. Some 750 refugees in a Muslim camp in another area of Ahmedabad were attacked by a Hindu mob last week and forced to flee.
"They burst crackers and bombs in the night to scare us. They don't want us to even live in camps. They've not attacked the camp so far only because it's in a Muslim area," said Khan, who lives in Shah Alam, the largest shelter housing 10,000 refugees.
A police officer in Ahmedabad said police had arrested 10,885 people in connection with the riots but did not know how many, if any, had been charged. Under Indian law, police have 60 days to file charges against anyone in detention.
Bivi's husband Hassan Abubakker, 65, whose house and hotel was burnt in the mayhem, said they had no choice but to leave.
"I'll go to (the southern state of) Kerala from where I came. No one will kill us there," he said.