By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent,
The indiscriminate police firing on Muslims who were protesting against a poster depicting the image of Prophet Muhammad on May 6 in Dhule town of Maharashtra suggests that the police came with a pre-determined mind to ‘teach a lesson’ to Muslims. The community is still frightened as their members though appeared before the fact finding team requested anonymity.
This is the observation of a 5-member fact finding team of All India Secular Forum. The team visited the affected areas in Dhule on May 12, six days after the incident. The team found excessive use of force by police was evident for all to see. “The Communal Prejudice among the police is a very strong. Many Muslims abstained from responding to the query by the Team as they think it might bring them to Police’ vindictive attention, as they themselves opined. Even those responded, requested to keep their name undisclosed. Police has created a fear psychosis among the people for no obvious fault of them,” says the fact finding team.
Dhule
A Maharashtra city, 300 kms north-east of Mumbai, has about 5 lakh population out of which 40% are Muslims, mostly engaged in power loom industry, known as Ansaris. The rest of the population is engaged in agriculture and allied industries. Sugarcane, Banana, groundnut, Cotton and of late grapes are the major crops of the region. Quite a few ginning as well as sugar mills are located in the region.
Who is their target?
Though Dhule and Malegaon are twins for many reasons, unlike the latter which is situated at a distance of a mere 50km, Dhule is historically a peaceful city from the communal point of view. However, people started feeling communal tension since the Ram Janmabhoomi movement launched by the Sangh Parivar in the early 90s. A number of smaller skirmishes were reported in the years followed from Nandurbar, Sakri, Navapur, Pimpalner… which are on the borders of Gujarat and Madya Pradesh.
Prior to the recent incident, the last big Hindu-Muslim riot in the city of Dhule took place in October 2008 over the controversial Afzal Khan-Shivaji poster, in which about 10 people lost their lives. A separate enquiry report on this riot was released by AISF then.
Sequence of May 6 Incident
On the day of unrest, May 06, 2010, when the administration was busy conducting MHT-CET exam, someone pasted a computer generated cartoon of Prophet Mohammed on the district Collectorate notice board. Creating images of Prophet Mohammed is considered to be a blasphemy by Muslims. One Bilal Ahmed who happened to visit the Collectorate, on seeing the poster, rang up to Mr. Sawaal Ansari, NCP Corporator and informed him of the mischief. Sawaal Ansari, in turn informed one Mr. Harshawardhan Kadam Bande, Ex MLA and NCP leader. A delegation led by these two leaders called upon the District Collector who in the presence of the Superintendent of Police, assured the delegation that that the culprit(s) would be arrested within one hour. However, hours passed without the police arresting any.
Meanwhile, a crowd of Muslims numbering few thousands had gathered at Assi Footi Road, Tiranga Chowk. The crowd demonstrated against the blasphemy and demanded immediate arrest of the culprits. It is reported that the crowd had turned violent and pelted stones on ST Buses. According to the media 14 buses were damaged which the Muslim representatives refuted saying only two buses were damaged. Police force was deployed on the scene. The SP Mr. Himmatrao Deshbhratar appealed to the crowd to disperse peacefully, assuring them that the culprits would be arrested soon. He even requested Mufti Mazood Ahmed (35 years old) to appeal the crowd. Standing on top of the Police Vehicle, Mufti appealed to the Crowd to disperse.
When the Fact Finding Team asked about the happening the Muslims told that, heeding the appeal of the Police officer and the Mufti, the crowd dispersed peacefully, and as it was time for Namaz they went to Namaz Subhani Masjid. However, they further said, when the Namazies came out of the Masjid after offering Namaz they found themselves surrounded by RAF Commandos and local police who started firing indiscriminately on the crowd without warning, and unleashed frightening attack on people and property. Several people were injured including Mufti Mazood Ahmed who was requested by the Police to appeal to the masses to maintain peace, was also brutally attacked by the Commandos, his two fingers are fractured and is now in bandage.
The eye witnesses told, immediately after this firing without warning, the police launched an offensive in the Muslim basti, forcefully entering into houses, hurled abuses on the women of the houses, beating whoever was found including women and children, breaking furniture and throwing about utensils in the kitchen and arresting about 40 Muslims from their homes.
The fact finding team visited Taj Transport Garage which according to the eyewitnesses was ransacked by 15-20 Commandos who beat up the owner Mohd Alim and picked up 6 employees of the garage.1 Similarly the Commandos broke open another shop, Maharashtra Battery Works which was closed then, and raged the shop to the ground. The batteries were also smashed beyond repair. Another Engineering workshop run by Haji Mohammed Shafi Ramzan Shah, was also raided and his servant Shafique was brutally attacked and taken to custody.
Criminal cases against protestors
The police filed FIR No 154/2010 against the crowd under the article 307. “In total 23 people were made accused in the case, 11 were arrested, rest remained absconder. However, we have secured release of all those arrested on bail, said Adv Nadeem Ansari talking to TwoCircles.net from Dhule.
Agreeing with the findings of the team regarding the police brutality, Adv Ansari cited a case of controlled use of police power. Adv Ansari said only on May 27 there was some incident in an area in Dhule. Two groups of majority community pelted stones on the police but the police restrained from firing and just resorted to lathi-charge, but in the Muslim case they opened fire.
He also added that the all the accused are those who were injured in the incident. The government has not given any relief to the victims of police brutality. On any official enquiry in the incident, Adv Ansari said the District Magistrate has ordered an SDM enquiry. The enquiry will take place on June 16/17.
The fact-finding team consisted Dr Suresh Khairnar(Nagpur), Mayatai Choure (Kamptee), Ranjit Pardeshi (Dhulia), Adv. Karim Salar (Jalgaon), Rahul Wagh (Dhulia) and Asif (Malegaon).
[Photo by www.hindujagruti.org]