An ode to Ode of Anand

The village of Ode in Anand district had 200 houses of Muslims. The Muslims lived in the four neighbouhoods known as Sarewalli Bhagol, Malao Bhagol, Pirawali Bhagol and Ode Nawapura.
On March 1, 2002 there was no Morning Prayer call from the mosques of the village as the Muslims were so much frightened by the reports of murder, mayhem and arson of the previous day that they were shocked stunned and terrified to the extent of being transfixed alive within their dwelling.
But their turn had overreached them. They had premonition of what lay in store for them as a community for the last two months. They had been animated into freezing fear of nervousness as they watched the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh volunteers and activists descending on the village with evil intent. The meeting of these took place in the house of Harishbhai Vallabhbhai Patel and the ominous posters for purging Muslims appeared on the walls in the public places soon afterward. These warned the people that Muslim youths had been teasing Hindu girls and there was need for teaching them a lesson. The two inauspicious threatening events were the harbingers of secret meetings in the nearby farms where the Hindus of the village gathered. Although they pretended it was farm related work but the farm hands mostly Muslims got the wind that it was an organized movement planned that did not bode well for their existence. For two months beginning with the last days of 2001 and the months of January and February 2002 the Muslims had become self conscious of what they were on account of the new deportment of their fellow villagers from the majority community.
Then the most dreaded first act of announcement came on March 1, 2002 when Harishbhai Vallabhbhai, Vasantbhai Poonambhai Patel and Natubhai Sanabhai Patel and some others warned them that soon there would be a rally of Hindus. What really transpired was the murderous crowd armed with sharp swords, spears, petrol bombs and gas cylinder entering the areas and locking the houses of the Muslims and burning them! They perished in the fire. Two of them were seriously burnt but ran out and went to a house of a Hindu whose key they had. They were farm hands of the Hindu farmers. For three days they hid there. There was no food or water worth name but they survived. One of them was Rehana Yusufbhai Vohra who saw how the houses were burnt and people killed, there were 28 of them of which seven were young girls and two elderly women. She became the eye witness.
Two others also had come out. One was Syed Ghulam Hussein and a small boy. The old grandfather of the boy could not walk. Chotubhai Ramabhai attacked and killed him by setting him on fire. His grandson saw the gruesome end of his grandfather from where he had sheltered himself.
The survivors identified the attackers who killed the Muslims as Dilipbhai Vallabhbhai Patel, Chotubhai Ranabhai Patel, Prakashbhai Jamnadas Patel and Hemant Kumar Rathod led the attackers. Among the armed they named Harish Vallabh who had a can of petrol, Nantubhai Sana who had a spear, Basant Poonambhai with a can of kerosene and a fire ball, Lalabhai Bakoorbhai with sickles. Some other identified and named were Ghanshayambhai Ambala, Devendrabhai Harishbhai Patel, Prakashbhai Jashbhai Patel, Dilipbhai Sanabhai Patel and Grishbhai Somabhai Patel.
Later on when the police came there and the victims were evacuated to nearby village of Sureli they identified and named Haribhai Vallabhbhai Patel who brought those who wanted to prevent the evacuation. There were two ex sarpanch or head of the village council, Ganesh Panwala Odhi and Ashabhai Patel. They also had their vehicles filled with people. The crowd intended to stop the victim survivors and kill them. Godhabhai Patel, Arvindbhai Patel, Anil Kumar,, Niranjan Kumar (Bobo), Arvind Rambhai, Raoji Sarabhai, Rajubhai Santabhai and Chotu Ramabhai Patel were on the road.
Twenty three Hindus were arrested including the above but most of them got bail. Seven were put in prison. One of them was given bail to celebrate Navratri dance of nine nights!
The most remarkable for history of modern India is that the local people many of whom had lived generations together turned on the Muslims in frenzy to eliminate them. They almost succeeded. The bulldozers had replaced the hands and bullock carts of yore to destroy any remnants of households of Muslims there. The Muslims of Ode could never return there. They dare not. That was what came out when Lord Mountebatten and his lady visited villages in Punjab where the Punjabi Muslims too were thus uprooted.
Unlike partition era when a fig leaf of holistic sense of nationalism was still there to hide the unseemly tendencies, things now and especially in Hindu party BJP ruled state like Gujarat have slid into an abyss. There is no hope left for the victims to return to their earlier life, let alone to their position or status, thanks to the kind of new order that Modi ushered in. He dreamed that Muslim should be so taught a lesson that they would never retaliate. Thus far he has succeeded and India has failed.
This bitter inference is based on how the state of Gujarat under the control of Modi has suborned the judiciary. Judge Ms SY Trivedi was constrained to resign in the first week of May 2011. April 28 2011 was the day she had fixed to give her verdict on Ode. But the Modi dispensation did not want to hear what her decision on the case was. She was transferred out of Anand district even before April 28. But the matter was tightly kept in secret. But now that it is in public domain we wait with waited breath how India reacts.
India reacted to the Non Resident Indians (NRI) enthusiastically as it meant huge funds coming into the country. But the acronym is a status symbol, it connotes opulence and affluence. However, its grim side is that the fund that Sonal Shah and VHP had collected and sent it to the Delhi address of office of the same saffron group which channeled it to those who conducted the pogroms of Muslims. Most of it ended up in the hands of the marauding crowds who had dry fruit packets, pouches of liquor, and weapons. They killed the hapless Muslims of Gujarat in 2002. The twenty eight of Ode were done to death with wherewithal supplied by the NRI. Ode of Anand district was famed as an “NIR village.” Most of the Hindus in the village known as Patels were quite rich and had many members of their families in the US. Even the superrich abroad shared the juggernaut of Hindutva back home.
-------

http://da.feedsportal.com/c/33039/f/533916/s/15755d35/l/0Ltimesofindia0Bindiatimes0N0Cindia0C20A0A20EGujarat0Eriots0Ejudge0Eresigns0Eafter0Etransfer0Carticleshow0C865630A70Bcms/ia1.htm
Crime Against Humanity