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Camps will not be closed, Gujarat Govt. tells court

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR JUNE 27. Even as the first heavy showers on Wednesday night and today has made life miserable for the riot victims in the relief camps, the Gujarat Government has given an undertaking to the High Court not to close down the camps till all the inmates are resettled.

The undertaking was given before a Division Bench of the court, comprising the Chief Justice D. S. Sinha and Justice J. M. Panchal, on a public interest litigation petition filed by the Citizens for Justice and Peace following reports that the Government was pressuring the organisers of the camps to close them down without making any alternate arrangements for the inmates.

Adjourning the hearing for a month, the court said it would monitor the Government's actions in this direction. The petitioners had pointed out that the camp organisers were being harassed and pressured in the name of inspection, causing problems to the inmates whose houses were yet to be repaired or reconstructed in the absence of adequate compensation from the Government.

The Governor, Sunder Singh Bhandari, had also issued similar instructions following the threat of resignation by the Congress representatives in the all-party committee for relief for the riot victims in protest against the Government's attempts to close down the camps.

The Congress had sent the letter to the Governor after the Government told the organisers to close down all the camps except three and send the inmates to the camps at Shah Alam Roza, Dariakhan Ghummat and Sankalitnagar in Juhapura.

The Government undertaking, however, failed to bring cheer to the inmates who had to spend sleepless night huddled together as the temporary shelters were washed away in the rains. The situation was comparatively better at the Dariakhan Ghummat camp located in a municipal school. But the organisers are concerned about accommodating additional inmates here if the other camps are closed down.

Even those whose houses are not damaged are worried about the prospect of returning home till the `rath yatra' on July 12 passes off peacefully. The stand off between the Jagannath temple trust, which organises the `rath yatra' in Ahmedabad every year, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, has worsened the situation.

While the trust, on the advice of police and leading citizens, favoured a change in the `rath yatra' route to avoid the sensitive and minority-dominated areas such as Dariapur, Shahpur, Halim-ni-Khadki, the VHP, opposed to any change in the route, is believed to have threatened to launch a parallel `rath yatra' through the traditional route. The Government, however, has left the decision to the trust.

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