M A I N   N E W S

US panel indicts India on Gujarat

Washington, May 7
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a statutory body which advises the Congress and the American President, has expressed “great concern” over riots in Gujarat in which the victims, it notes, were “primarily Muslims.”

The report has, however, mixed praise for Pak President Pevez Musharraf with criticism for the state of religious freedom in the country.

The commission, headed by Michael Young, Dean of George Washington University Law School and comprising eight others including a person of Indian origin, Shirin Tahir-Kheli of the Johns Hopkins University, said in its report, that it had observed with great concern the communal rioting between Muslims and Hindus in India since February 2002 that has taken more than 800 lives, “primarily Muslims.”

The commission, the report said, “continues to urge the US Government to press the Indian authorities to exercise their power to halt atrocities and violence, bring perpetrators to justice, and do more to root out the causes of religious intolerance, especially by resolving the impasse over the Babri mosque in Ayodhya destroyed in 1992 by Hindu nationalists who are vowing to construct a Hindu temple on the site.”

The commission said it “has focussed on India in light of the increase in recent years in severe violence against religious minorities in that country — Muslims, Christians and Sikhs nationwide, and Hindus in Tripura state.”

It noted that following the outburst of communal violence in Gujarat, the commission issued a statement calling upon the USA to help the Indian Government “foster a climate of religious tolerance and citing its May 2001 recommendations for US policy to promote religious freedom in India.”

The report recalled the commission’s successful efforts to get the separate electorate system in Pakistan abolished with the government announcing plans to do so in January 2002.

“In recent months,” the report said, “the Pakistani Government has also undertaken efforts to prevent militant religious extremist groups and religious schools from promoting violence or possessing any type of weapons, in line with the Commission's recommendations.”

Expressing concern at the spate of attacks on churches in the country in the recent past, it said, though government had taken steps to investigate the incidents, these had not been adequate to hold accountable those responsible. PTI