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Bharatpur Riots:
Tension prevails; Toll rises to seven
The toll in the clash
between two communities in Rajasthan's Bharatpur district rose to
seven with three more bodies recovered from a well, police said
Friday.
Members of the Gujjar and Meo communities clashed in Bharatpur
district Wednesday over
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New Delhi:
Probably at the same time when Prime Minister Dr Manmohan
Singh was urging the police forces to "honestly discharge their
duties" and function within the democratic framework to
"scrupulously respect and uphold" civil liberties, activists, who
visited the riot affected area of Bharatpur in Rajasthan, were
recounting how brutal the same police force could be.
"The victims said they felt total helplessness
when they saw police joining Gujjars in shooting them. They saved
their lives by running from the spot and jumping into the pond",
member of the National Integration Council (NIC) Navaid Hamid
recalled.
Navaid Hamid was part of the ANHAD
fact finding team, which visited the place led by Shabnam Hashmi.
"One of the victims said he saw police and Gujjars firing at people
in the mosque, killing most of them on the spot. They were also
burning people,” he added.
Members of the Gujjar and Meo communities clashed in Bharatpur
district of Rajasthan Wednesday with a controversy over an Eidgah land.
The clash soon took the form of gun firing between the two communities.
The incident has so far killed seven people but the officials fear
the toll may go further up. Police has also recovered some dead
bodies from the well near a mosque in Gopalgarh where the violence
took place.
A journalist who accompanied the fact finding team claims in his
report that they saw two completely charred bodies in the well, located within
the premise of the Eidgah mosque. There was nothing inside the
mosque which was not broken. They found more than 6 spots on the
floor and roof of the mosque which were bloodied.
According
to the District Magistrate, Kumal Krishna, one survivor, who is
also badly burnt and is hospitalized in Alwar, said that he
was burnt by the rioting mob but he saved his life by jumping into
the nearby pond.
Meanwhile, the Rajasthan government
last evening ordered a committee
headed by senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer V.S.
Singh to probe the incident.
"The committee will probe whether there was any negligence on the
part of police and the administration, and whether they failed to
assess the gravity of the situation," a senior administrative
officer said.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also ordered a
committee headed by senior leader Digambar Singh to probe the role
of administration and the police.
The government has announced compensation of Rs.5 lakh each to the
families of those killed.
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