By TCN Special Correspondent,
Ahmedabad: Though most of the Muslims, who had fled from Napaniya and Khalaspur villages of Panchmahals district two weeks ago, have returned with adequate police security deployed in the two villages, there are still many others who are reluctant to return. The entire Muslim population vacated the two villages after June 8 when a Muslim youth Hanif Yusuf Qureshi eloped with a tribal girl Seema. While Qureshi is married, the girl is unmarried.
Muslims had taken shelter with their relatives in nearby Godhra, Lunawada and Santrampur towns.
Though tension had developed in the two villages after elopement, no violence had taken place. But fearing backlash from the tribals, Muslims had left their houses. In fact, the memories of 2002 communal violence haunted them because the worst incident of anti-Muslim violence in rural areas had been reported from tribal dominated Panchmahals and Dahod districts. Bilqis Bano, who was gangraped after several of her family members were killed, also hails from Dahod. These two villages had also reported anti-Muslim violence though at a very low scale.
With the effort of the police, the youth and the tribal girl were traced and brought back to the village on June 17. The tribal girl was handed over to her family.
As the police did not want any fresh violence, they approached the Muslims with the help of the community leaders and escorted many of them back to their houses in the two villages. However, there were still dozens of the families who were not willing to return immediately. Among them is also the family of Qureshi who had eloped with the tribal girl.
A senior police official of the Panchmahals district said that adequate security arrangements had been made to ensure that no untoward incident took place and harmony and brotherhood prevailed. No case has been registered in connection with the elopement against the boy.
According to social activists working in the area, elopement of tribal girls with prosperous Muslim boys is very common. According to activists, around 30 per cent of the wives in Muslim families in tribal areas are from Hindu tribal families. As the tribals depending on land for their livelihood are very poor and Muslims having control over much of the business in tribal areas are economically well off, activists say that it was the wealth that attracted the tribal girls towards Muslim boys.
If activists are to be believed, this trend of Muslim boys enticing the tribal girls was one of the chief reasons for the tribals to attack Muslims on a large scale during communal riots of 2002. The activists of the Sangh Parivar also allegedly used the latent anger among tribals against the Muslims during the riots.
Commenting on the elopement issue, human rights activist Juzar S. Bandukwala said that it was very bad for the married Muslim youth to elope with the tribal girl.
“It is the responsibility of every individual Muslim to ensure that he does not commit any activity that results into hostility with other communities’’, stated Bandukwala.