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Is Malegaon Victim of Hindu Revenge Seekers' Design?
Why Unequal Compensation to Victims?
By
Iqbal A. Ansari
The
Milli Gazette Online
14
September 2006
 While condemning terrorism in absolute terms, the tendency of treating Muslims as the only people who could be perpetrators of all terrorist acts must be deplored. Not only sections of media but most often personnel of investigating and other law-enforcement agencies of governments which claim to be secular betray this tendency-even in the face of glaring example of terrorist act of demolition of Babri Masjid by Hindutva forces, and continuing violent hate campaign by the Shiv Sena & the Sangh Parivar against Muslims-who have been obviously targeted in Malegaon on Friday Sept.8, 2006.
The choice of site and timing makes it obvious that it is the result of diabolical design of anti-Muslim forces to avenge the loss of lives in Mumbai blasts & earlier incidents in which victims were mostly Hindus. There is a need for human rights groups and the peace activists to raise the demand of bringing all Hindu extremist leaders and organizations which have been openly preaching and practising violence, under severe investigation.
2. Can there be a secular State without secular justice? The compensation announced by the government for each life lost in Malegaon, majority of whom are Muslims, is just 1/5th of that given to the victims of Mumbai blast, majority of whom were Hindus?
Is it that Manu's laws are still in operation in India?
2.1 Such a glaring disparity in according ex-gratia compensation to victims of violence-is the rule in India, not an exception. Will any group ask the Home Ministry to provide full information on compensation paid to victims of various massacres, pogroms and riots and explain the reasons for disparity in payment of compensation, which has ranged between 1: 100 and even more.-The NCM has failed to provide any comparative statement in four months time of just a few cases: Nellie, Assam (1983), Delhi (1984), Hashimpura, Meerut (1987), Gujarat 2002, Marad (Kerala) 2004, that I asked them to do.
Mumbai bomb-blast occurred in July 2006 and Malegaon in September 2006. Why this disparity of 5:1? What an irony, that almost the same day Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sends missives to Chief Ministers for fairness to Muslims, ensuring their due share in national life under PM's 15 Point Programme.
Long live India's secularism, which according to IK Gujral, is the main cause of absence of Indian Muslims from international terrorist outfits.
The secular intellectual class, must ask the question: What has the Indian State done to ensure to Muslims equality of status and opportunity, and effective equality before the law and equal protection of the laws.
My experience with NHRC on the issue of right of victims of violence (before Gujarat 2002) has not been encouraging. Will it now act to secure equal justice to all citizens?
The author is Secretary General, Minorities Council. He may be contacted at iqbalansari2001@hotmail.com
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