We Have No Orders to Save You - Human Rights Watch

homes accompanied the brutal killing and sexual violence. Attackers destroyed dargahs, traditional meeting
grounds for Hindus and Muslims, and razed mosques. In some cases makeshift Hindu temples were erected in
their place, and saffron flags, the signature emblem of Hindu nationalist groups, were dug deep into mosque
domes. Roughly twenty mosques were destroyed in Ahmedabad alone. Even historical monuments were not
spared. 6
State Complicity in the Attacks
Soon after the Godhra carnage, the national government sent the army to Gujarat. The state government refused
to deploy the soldiers until twenty-fours hours after they arrived and only once the worst violence had ended.
After allowing thirty-six hours to pass without any serious intervention, the first of several contingents of army
troops were sent to Ahmedabad, Rajkot, and Vadodara on March 1. The army’s inability to rapidly intervene was
also hindered by the state government’s failure to provide requested transportation support and information
regarding areas where violence was occurring. 7
In Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s commercial capital and the site of Human Rights Watch’s investigations in March 2002,
many attacks took place within view of police posts and police stations. Human Rights Watch viewed several
police posts less than fifty feet from the site of burnt Muslim-owned restaurants, places of business, and hotels.
Without exception, the Hindu-owned establishments neighboring the destroyed structures were unscathed. The
same pattern was observed by India’s National Human Rights Commission during its fact-finding mission in
March 2002. 8
Attacks throughout Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002, also began at precisely the same time, around 10:30 in the
morning. Muslims living in “mixed communities,” that is alongside Hindus, were hit the hardest; those
concentrated in Muslim enclaves fared only marginally better. According to an article in The Week, a weekly
Indian news magazine, 1,679 houses, 1,965 shops, and twenty-one godowns (warehouses) were burnt, 204 shops
looted, and seventy-six shrines were destroyed in Ahmedabad. The great majority of them belonged to Muslims. 9
Dozens of witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch described almost identical operations. The attackers
arrived by the thousands in trucks, clad in saffron scarves and khaki shorts, the signature uniform of Hindu
nationalist, or Hindutva, groups. Armed with swords, trishuls (small, sharp tridents associated with Hindu
mythology), sophisticated explosives, and gas cylinders, they shouted slogans of incitement to kill. Guided by
voter lists and computer printouts listing the addresses of Muslim families and their properties, information
obtained from the Ahmedabad municipal corporation among other sources months earlier, the attackers embarked
on a murderous rampage. 10
In many cases, the police led the charge, aiming and firing at Muslims who got in the way of the mobs. The state
offered one excuse after another—that the police were outnumbered, overwhelmed, did not receive orders to
respond, or that their own feelings could not be “insulated from the general social milieu”—none sufficient to
explain their participation. Press reports and eyewitness testimonies, including those collected by Human Rights
Watch, abound with stories of police participation and complicity in the attacks. Their crimes ranged from
inaction to direct participation in the looting and burning of Muslim shops, restaurants, hotels, and homes, and the
killing of Muslim residents. In many instances, the police also fired upon Muslim youth, crushing any organized
self-defense against the mobs. 11 A key state minister was reported to have taken over a police control room in
Ahmedabad on the first day of the carnage, issuing directions not to rescue Muslims in danger of being killed. 12
6 See Human Rights Watch, “We Have No Orders to Save You,” pp. 31-33.
7 Rahul Bedi, “Soldiers ‘held back to allow Hindus revenge,’” Telegraph, March 4, 2002.
8 Human Rights Watch, “We Have No Orders to Save You,” p. 22.
9 Anosh Malekar, “Silence of the Lambs,” The Week, April 7, 2002.
10 Human Rights Watch, “We Have No Orders to Save You,” p. 22.
11 Human Rights Watch, “We Have No Orders to Save You,” p. 24.
12 Praveen Swami, “Saffron Terror,” Frontline, March 16 – 29, 2002.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 11 JULY 2003, Vol. 15, No. 3 (C)