New4Use - Will this stop!!

More than 50 people have been killed & burnt alive and hundreds of churches and houses set fire by mobs in Orissa. Even as tensions continue in Orissa, the violence has now spread to other states as well, including the southern states of Karnataka and Kerala and Madhya Pradesh in the north.
A sudden reaction of the local Hindu community to the killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP) leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his disciples in Orissa’s Kandhamal district? Or instigation by the Hindu nationalist organisation? According to media reports, around 30 armed men carrying sophisticated weapons attacked Saraswati’s ashram in Jalespata in Kandhamal on the night of August 23, killing five people. Maoists (radical Marxists) claimed responsibility for the assassination. But the VHP and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is part of the ruling coalition with the Biju Janata Dal in Orissa, alleged that local Christians were behind the killing.
On August 24, bloodshed started as a mob allegedly led by the VHP defied the curfew that was imposed in apprehension of tensions and took out funeral procession carrying Saraswati’s body from Jalespata to Chakapada, covering more than 100km. The following day, the VHP enforced a statewide closure with the support of the BJP, and attacks on Christians and their property intensified. Not surprisingly, a similar sequence of events was witnessed after a compartment of the Sabarmati Express train caught fire – or was set to fire (as claimed by the VHP) – near the Godhra city railway station in the western state of Gujarat on February 27, 2002. In the fire, 58 Hindu passengers, mainly VHP supporters, were killed. The VHP and the BJP alleged it was an attack by “Islamic” terrorists.
On February 28, the VHP imposed a closure throughout Gujarat, and the state government, ruled by the BJP, decided to transfer the charred bodies of the fire victims to the Ahmedabad city. On the journey from Godhra to Ahmedabad, at least two incidents of stabbing took place at the Vadodara city railway station. At the Ahmedabad station, large crowds were allowed to see the bodies that were later taken in a funeral procession.
These commonalities in the two most violent attacks on minorities appear far from being mere coincidence. It seems like a well thought out strategy of the VHP and like-minded militant groups to carry out massive “ethnic cleansing” operations in states ruled by a fellow member of the Sangh Parivar (family of organisations under the leadership of India’s most influential Hindu nationalist group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS). In Karnataka, the Bajrang Dal, VHP’s youth wing, has claimed responsibility for the numerous attacks on churches and their institutions in a dare devil fashion. The role of the State in allowing the VHP to organise violence in Orissa is also clear. For, if a state government really wants to prevent communal violence, it would not allow closures and funeral processions of victims of a community by a militant group. Besides, the state administration would deal with communal groups strictly. However, the governments of Orissa and Gujarat neither banned the funeral processions and shutdowns, and nor did their police prevent attacks on minority communities. When attacks took place in Kandhamal in Orissa in late December last year, the Orissa police claimed that the geography of the hilly and forest district made it difficult for them to control the violence that resulted in loss of lives and destruction of property. Once again, the police are using the same excuse after numerous deaths and arson attacks have taken place in various parts of the state. The commandant of the Central Reserve Police Force in Orissa recently made a statement in a national newspaper saying the state police completely failed to take action against the rioters. The people cannot be fooled to believe that the VHP can send its workforce to “isolated” and “remote” villages of Orissa, but the police cannot. Does the VHP have more resources than the administration? Besides, the people are aware of the might of the police force when their political bosses have the will to achieve something. Recall how M Karunanidhi, Tamil Nadu’s then former chief minister, was dragged, screaming and kicking, out of his residence by the police in July 2001, during the tenure of his political opponent J Jayalalithaa. More recently, the Rajasthan police reportedly killed at least 39 people belonging to the Gujjar community to end their agitation demanding inclusion in the Scheduled Tribes list – though they could not control the protests. Most recently, security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir have killed numerous protesters for and against the Amarnath shrine land row.
Not that the police should kill rioters. But they must be given prompt orders to use some force to protect members of a hapless community. There may not be enough evidence against the VHP and the ruling parties in Orissa that can stand in a court of law, but the people of the country can easily construe from the facts mentioned above that the violence unleashed in the state was nothing less than a pogrom. And the Orissa government should fear that.