Lawyers for three British Muslims who were hacked to death during riots in Gujarat said they would press for a Milosevic-style trial of India’s Prime Minister and other leading members of his govt. at the Hague. Habibullah Akudi, who represents the families of the dead men, said that he was now preparing to take their case to the international court of justice. A leaked report compiled by diplomats at the British High Commission has blamed India’s ruling. BJP party for the continuing violence in Gujarat, in which at least 2,000 people, almost all of them Muslims, have died. Akudi said on April 29 he would indict India’s Hindu nazi Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee for presiding over an “organised pogrom against Gujarat’s Muslims. He also planned to name. Advani and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The case against them was “logical and viable”, he said. The three British Muslims who died in the riots were in India on holiday. They were Mohammed Aswat, and cousins Saeed and Shakil Dawood, all from Batley. West Yorkshire. They were on their way to their ancestral village when a Hindu mob stopped their car at Prantij, about 50 miles south of Ahmedabad. The mob dragged them out of their vehicle and doused them in kerosene. The mutilated remains of Aswat were later recovered. But the bodies of the two other men have still not been found. The men’s families have complained that they have had no assistance from Indian authorities, who refused to provide them with an escort so they could visit the scene when the flew out to India. Their lawyers, based in Dewsbury, are now collecting evidence that allegedly shows that murders were not an isolated incident but part of a sinister pattern. A report by the US Human Rights Watch has accused state officials of direct involvement in the killing of hundreds of Muslims and a “massive cover-up of the state’s role. Akudi said he would soon file a case against Modi in the high court accusing him of murder., “We will arrest him as soon as he lands in London”, he said.
Prevention better than cure: It is now very clear that the latest Gujarat anti-Muslim riots was very well-planned anu hence it could be classified under genocide. It properly presented, the War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague would take up the case. We congratulate British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for encouraging such a step. The Indian Muslim leadership is busy rendering relief in Gujarat. But they do not know the nazis are planning repetition of Gujarat in other parts of India. What is needed is prevention which is better than cure. They have not been able even to understand why anti-Muslim hatred is rising in India
