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Tag: killing of Bhagalpur

  • The Killing Fields of Bhagalpur

    By Omar Afzal

    The massacre of innocent Muslims in Bhagalpur City and surrounding villages in the last week of October 1989 may be added to a very short list of mind-boggling tales of human savagery. The grim details are still not fully known and perhaps the full story may never see the light of the day.

    The local administration has put the casualty figure to a 1,000 dead and several thousand uprooted. Unofficial estimates are as high as 3,000 dead, a thousand unaccounted for and more than 50,000 homeless. The number of injured may be around 8,ooo.

    The medieval atrocities of Genghiz Khan pale in comparison to what the Hindu mobs did in several villages of the Bhagalpur District. A frenzied mob swooped on the village in the Jagdishpur block, killed everyone it could and buried them in a field. To cover its heinous acts, it leveled the mass graves and planted vegetables over them. In Chakjhoura Village, dead bodies and human limbs were found hidden in a paddy field. The corpse-filled ponds of Chanderi were perhaps the ultimate in human barbarism. As an Indian journalist put it, “a monster stalks Bhagalpur.” The most shocking aspect of the anti-Muslim terror in Bhagalpur is the connivance of police, army and local administration. The High Court in Patna, capital of the northeastern state of Bihar, has asked army Maj. G.P.S. Virk to explain why he left 100 Muslims, mostly women and children, of Chanderi Village in the protective custody of the local police and failed to report when he found them “missing” the next day.

    The Bihar Military Police is also said to have helped the killer Hindu mobs. Not only that Hindu policeman often turned their backs at the killings, they also killed and maimed people when they were handed to them for safe keeping. After a home-made bomb was thrown at the police party, allegedly by Muslims, the police went on a looting rampage. Some uniformed policemen are reported to have set fire to a mosque. A commander of the BSF could not ‘believe his eyes when he saw Hindu policemen standing on both sides of a narrow lane clobbering Muslim men, women and children, who were rescued from riot-affected areas. Because of the complicity of police, military and local administration, some of the most brutal killing were not reported until recently. Bhagalpur police are notorious for violence. In 1980, several Bhagalpur policemen were arrested for acid-blinding four defendants who were under trial.

    Not has the Western media not been interested in doing investigative reports on the Bhagalpur killings, the Indian media, has not been fair to the victims either. Without exception, Indian newsmen have caned the anti-Muslim violence “communal riots” and some have shied away from saying that the victims were Muslim. Instead they have referred to them as members of a “minority.” Why are they ashamed of calling a spade a spade, or of blaming the police for complicity? Because it would tarnish India’s image as the land of “Ahimsa?’5 (nonviolence).

    The writer,’ who works at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was in India recently.

  • Islamic Reaction: Strong, But Not Strong Enough

    By Aliya Sultana (the writer lives in Boston, Massachusetts)

    The mass killings of Muslims in Bihar and other states of India has shocked the world. Muslims have held street demonstrations at the Indian diplomatic missions in several countries. The Muslim media has condemned the massacres. Political activists in the Islamic world have issued press statements deploring the senseless genocide by the Hindu police in Bihar and other places. All this is very familiar to the observers of the Indian Muslim scene since independence in 1947. What is new are the statements of Muslim governments in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh. All four governments have strongly deplored the violence directed by the police against unarmed civilians. The statement of Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was the strongest when she caned the killing of Muslims “reprehensible,” and the desecration of Babari Masjid as “a matter of concern to the Muslim Ummah at large.” For the first time in recent memory, the Iranian Foreign Ministry lashed out at the Indian government’s failure to protect its Muslim citizens. Expressions of “distress” at the premediated violence was expressed from – the official quarters in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh. To the Muslims in India in general and Bihari Muslims in particular, the expression of sympathy from Bangladesh was extremely heartwarming. It demonstrated to the Hindu fanatics in India that despite bitter differences among them, Muslims of South Asia are one and indivisible. For no matter how unpleasant the recent history of Bengali-Bihari relations – the Muslims of the two regions will be united against their common enemy – the upper-caste Hindus who have oppressed Muslims, untouchables and the tribals.

    The feelings of the Muslim Ummah at large were succinctly expressed in a statement of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) issued at the time of Bhagalpur massacre. “The Muslim world is outraged at the willful murder of hundreds of innocent Muslims at the hands of armed police,” it said. But one must ask, is the expression of outrage enough? Now that Muslim governments have broken their long silence on the butchery of their fellow faithful, is it not time to match action with words? One would even say that it is time to match rhetoric with swift and effective retribution against states neglecting the safety of their Muslim citizens. Muslim countries, specially the oil-rich countries, ought to know that India is far more vulnerable to their pressure than they realize. Anytime there is an outbreak of violence against Muslims, Muslim governments should take whatever punitive measures are at their disposal against the offending states. India received subsidized oil, financial aid and grants, employment for its large labor force, and contracts for its public and private sector from the Arab world and Iran. All of these economic ties should be reviewed in light of India’s deplorable record of human rights.

  • The Killing Fields of Bhagalpur

    By Omar Afzal

    The massacre of innocent Muslims in Bhagalpur City and surrounding villages in the last week of October 1989 may be added to a very short list of mind-boggling tales of human savagery. The grim details are still not fully known and perhaps the full story may never see the light of the day.

    The local administration has put the casualty figure to a 1,000 dead and several thousand uprooted. Unofficial estimates are as high as 3,000 dead, a thousand unaccounted for and more than 50,000 homeless. The number of injured may be around 8,ooo.

    The medieval atrocities of Genghiz Khan pale in comparison to what the Hindu mobs did in several villages of the Bhagalpur District. A frenzied mob swooped on the village in the Jagdishpur block, killed everyone it could and buried them in a field. To cover its heinous acts, it leveled the mass graves and planted vegetables over them. In Chakjhoura Village, dead bodies and human limbs were found hidden in a paddy field. The corpse-filled ponds of Chanderi were perhaps the ultimate in human barbarism. As an Indian journalist put it, “a monster stalks Bhagalpur.” The most shocking aspect of the anti-Muslim terror in Bhagalpur is the connivance of police, army and local administration. The High Court in Patna, capital of the northeastern state of Bihar, has asked army Maj. G.P.S. Virk to explain why he left 100 Muslims, mostly women and children, of Chanderi Village in the protective custody of the local police and failed to report when he found them “missing” the next day.

    The Bihar Military Police is also said to have helped the killer Hindu mobs. Not only that Hindu policeman often turned their backs at the killings, they also killed and maimed people when they were handed to them for safe keeping. After a home-made bomb was thrown at the police party, allegedly by Muslims, the police went on a looting rampage. Some uniformed policemen are reported to have set fire to a mosque. A commander of the BSF could not ‘believe his eyes when he saw Hindu policemen standing on both sides of a narrow lane clobbering Muslim men, women and children, who were rescued from riot-affected areas. Because of the complicity of police, military and local administration, some of the most brutal killing were not reported until recently. Bhagalpur police are notorious for violence. In 1980, several Bhagalpur policemen were arrested for acid-blinding four defendants who were under trial.

    Not has the Western media not been interested in doing investigative reports on the Bhagalpur killings, the Indian media, has not been fair to the victims either. Without exception, Indian newsmen have caned the anti-Muslim violence “communal riots” and some have shied away from saying that the victims were Muslim. Instead they have referred to them as members of a “minority.” Why are they ashamed of calling a spade a spade, or of blaming the police for complicity? Because it would tarnish India’s image as the land of “Ahimsa?’5 (nonviolence).

    The writer,’ who works at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was in India recently.