By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Washim (Maharashtra): The family of a murdered youth during a communal violence ignited under the pretence of ‘Love Jihad’ at Karanja town in Washim district has been made to run from pillar to post by the government without any declaration of compensation even after one month of his murder.
The victim’s family alleges that they have not been given any satisfactory answer by the government authority and hence their hope of assistance from government is fading each day.
However, district collector says there is a process for awarding compensation to riots hit families and accordingly he will first verify the report once sent to him by local police before he recommends the state government for compensation.
Karanja witnessed communal tension on July 13 following the marriage of a youth belonging to a minority community with a girl from another community that resulted in the death of youth, identified as 35-year-old Shujaoddin, and injuries to many others apart from damages to public property.
Purportedly, the girl is a daughter of a local political leader with association with the right wing extremist organisations. Apart from the RSS, many more Hindu organisations, angry because of the marriage, have been holding meetings on the issue since then.
On the morning of July 13, the situation turned violent and there was a clash between the people from two communities, resulting in Shujaoddin’s death.
TwoCircles.net spoke with victim’s family who are into the despair due to sudden death of the sole bread winner of their family that had taken place in the month of Ramadhan.
Wife, Mother and three daughters of Shujaoddin
“We have not been given any compensation by the government. Collector does not respond to our request positively, local police say they cannot do anything. We lost him (Shujaoddin) without any fault of his during the communal violence that had actually taken place due to non vigilance of police on criminal activities planned by members of radical right wing group,” Kaisar, brother-in-law of Shujaoddin told TwoCircles.net.
“There is a complete darkness before the eyes of his (Shujaoddin) three little daughters and young wife,” he says with sobbing voice.
Another relative Zakir Shaikh, 35, says people in the town whose shops were destroyed did not request for compensation out of fear as police still continue to arrest or detain men from the town.
“Jamaat-e-Islami sent a letter on our behalf to CM and other government institution requesting for compensation. We never expected that government will take this long time to declare it although we have seen immediate compensation in other cases across the state”, he told.
House of murdered youth Shujaoddin
Yusuf Bhai, a social activist from Karanja says that compensation should also be given to those people who were injured and suffered losses to their properties.
“There were many who were injured and whose shops were destroyed. Compensation should also be awarded to these families along with family of murdered youth”, he told TwoCircls.net.
Meanwhile, the collector said that peace has been restored to the town after it was put under week long curfew last month and now they are in a process of examining the losses and victims of the violence.
While talking with TwoCircles.net D. Chaturvedi, Washim district collector said he is awaiting report from Karanja Thanedar and, “Only after receiving report he can recommend state government to award compensation”.
On questioned can he not direct Thanedar to immediately send report; he asked to talk with Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) and get the status of report and why it is being delayed at his end.
TwoCircles.net then spoke with SDM Dinkar Kale who said a positive report will be sent to collector by Monday evening. He said, “I had asked Thanedar to rework on the report as earlier report had lacuna. I asked him to mention all the damages suffered during violence along with number of people killed and injured”.
“New Thanedar Patil has taken charge recently and is expected to send report by Monday evening that I will send to collector for further procedure”, he added.
He assured that the report with list of victims and losses to them will be sent to collector on Tuesday.
Related:
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Communal violence hit family in Maharashtra still awaits compensation