By IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, 30 May 2015: What happened on 25th May in Atali village of Ballabgarh tehsil in Haryana was not spontaneous, claimed ANHAD, a social organization whose team visited the village on Friday. “Atali is a small village with approximately 150 Muslim houses. It was easy for the marauders to identify the homes of Muslims. It were these houses which were targeted and burnt. The pattern of Gujarat 2002 was replicated on a smaller scale,” said a group of Delhi’s eminent social activists in a four-page memorandum they submitted to the Resident Commissioner of Haryana Bhawan here Saturday after two-hour protest demonstration along the riot victims including two dozen women from Atali village.
Around 80 Muslims from Haryana who along with hundreds others had fled their homes when attacked by some members of the majority community on 25th May, demonstrated outside the Haryana Bhawan here in the National Capital. To support them, scores of eminent social activists of the city reached the protest site braving scorching sun.
“Last night ANHAD’s visit to the Ballabhgarh City police station and the Atali village has revealed the facts which are often obfuscated both in official and media accounts. Facts and only facts have to become the basis for immediate action by Haryana State.”
women riot victims protesting outside Haryana Bhawan in Delhi on 30 May 2015
“What is being seen as spontaneous action of inflamed Jat youth on Monday morning was not that. It was brewing for a few days, the first stirrings of which were felt as early as Friday when the Muslims assembled for Juma prayers. The police were in the know and deliberately ignored the tension. Their bias is evident in the fact that when the trouble was at its peak, instead of reinforcing the watch, the existing watch was actually withdrawn. That places the police also in the circle of suspicion,” they said in the memorandum with immediate arrest of riot accused persons topping the list of 11 demands in it.
Violence condemend
“We, the undersigned comprising of human rights, women activists, advocates and concerned citizens of India from different Civil Society organizations and all those in support of the cause of marginalized people, strongly condemns the communal violence against the Muslim community of Atali, Ballabhgarh by the dominant caste Jats on 25th of May 2015,” read the memorandum signed by two dozen eminent activists and politicians including Shabnam Hashmi (Anhad), Ali Anwar Ansari (JDU), Ramzan Choudhry, Asad Ashraf, Apoorvanand, Navaid Hamid (MOEMIN), Sanjay Sharma and Mohd Aamir.
They demanded a judicial probe into the whole incident “to ensure this kind of communal violence does not spread to other parts of Haryana.”
Social Activists speak on Haryana riot
Shabnam Hashmi:
“What happened in Atali was not a riot. It was a one-sided attack on Muslims in which at least 20 houses were completely burnt down using gas cylinders and petrol – similarly on the pattern of the Gujarat riot.”
Prof. Apporvanand:
“A pattern of communal violence has been set in the country, which was repeated in Atali. They need an excuse to carry out the violence. Now attack is carried out in a way that not many people are killed, but fear and terror should spread and people are forced to flee their homes. Then pressure is built that no action is taken against the attackers – this becomes a condition for the return of the victims to their homes.”
Navaid Hamid:
“When the one year of Narendra Modi government was completing it ended on the same not of riot on which it had begun. Just two days before the completion of one year, the Atali violence took place. The day when the Modi government started working (on 26th May 2014), a communal riot had taken place. The whole year was a year of riots.”
