Opinion - News Analysis

Barbarism at its worst

Around mid-day earlier this week, a couple on a scooter was stopped by a mob of about 50 people armed with knives and other weapons on Vasna main road in Ahmedabad. They were asked to disclose their identity. Sensing trouble, the man gave a Hindu name. But the mob was not amused. He was made to strip to confirm his identity and then stabbed in the chest and abdomen.

Munnabhai, 28, who migrated from Uttar Pradesh about a decade back, is fighting for his life in hospital. His wife, Mumtaz Bano, 30, who was stripped and stabbed repeatedly on her private parts, died instantly.

It was not a chance encounter. The mob was aware of the couple's identity and wanted to punish them for inter-community marriage. Geetaben was a Hindu girl, a resident of Guptanagar in Vasna locality, before she became Mumtaz Bano.

In Baroda, a teacher running coaching classes was sought out by a group of hooligans and stabbed to death in broad daylight for the same crime.

He too had married a Hindu girl some 11 years ago.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has always been touchy about Hindu girls marrying Muslim boys, viewing it as a method of conversion, though it welcomed Hindu boys marrying Muslim girls.

Eyewitnesses say that on the day of the "Gujarat bandh" a woman was raped repeatedly in front of a frenzied mob of about 5,000 people before being thrown into a fire in Gulmarg society in Ahmedabad's Meghaninagar locality.

The Gujarat riots are replete with stories of ghastly attacks on the minorities, humiliation of women and killing of children.

There are no accounts of how many women were raped and tortured before being killed but such complaints have come both from urban and rural areas. — M.D.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• Callousness... after the carnage
• Barbarism at its worst
• Where time is not a healer
• Crime and no punishment
• A retrogressive move

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu