After serial bombings killed dozens of people here, Muslim housewife Tahira Bi hopes history will not repeat itself in India’s western state of Gujarat, where memories of Hindu rage are still fresh.
With the city of Ahmedabad hit by blasts claimed by a little-known Islamist group, the specter of a fresh outbreak of communal violence or revenge attacks on Muslims is at the forefront of concerns.
“I first saw Hindu-Muslim riots when I was 10 years old. Then again in 2002. I have no fear any more,” Bi said at her home in the Naroda-Patiya residential area, where many Muslims were killed in riots six years ago.
“How long are we going to live scared and running, like cats and dogs? What has to happen will happen, but we have to go on,” said the mother of six, and who is in her 40s.
The riots in 2002 erupted after 59 Hindu pilgrims died in a train fire first blamed on a Muslim mob but which an inquiry later concluded was accidental.
Several investigations at the state and federal level have alleged police failed to protect Muslims, who accounted for most of the estimated 2,000 people killed in the pogrom.
After Saturday’s bombings, federal authorities have been quick to take preventative action — including the deployment of heavily armed combat troops in potential flashpoint areas to deter riots.
At least 45 were killed and more than 160 wounded in the blasts, official figures show.
An army commander said, “anger could spread once the bodies are handed back to relatives for cremations” and that the army had been deployed “as a major psychological deterrent to riots.”
Still, many Muslims here were optimistic the city would remain calm — mainly because Gujarat’s right-wing Hindu nationalist chief minister, Narendra Modi, was only re-elected last year so had no need to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment.
Modi, a member of the main national opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has consistently denied any role in the 2002 violence.
“This time it is not the same,” local Muslim businessman Altaf Memon said, suggesting that communal tensions have been easing since 2002.
“There is no question of riots, unless the politicians want them. I live in a Hindu area. I have a shop in the Hindu area and I don’t have to fear for anything,” Memon said.
A Hindu resident, who asked his name not be used, agreed with that sentiment, saying “Modi has come to power again, so he doesn’t need to divide people any more to get votes.”
Meanwhile, police raided the home of an US citizen in Mumbai and seized a computer from which an e-mail claiming responsibility for Saturday’s bombings was believed to have been sent, officials said yesterday.
The 48-year-old American has not been detained, said Kirit Sonawane, a police officer involved in the raid. He would not say if the American was a suspect and provided no other details about the man’s identity.
“We are talking to him,” Sonawane said.
Police said they also arrested an underworld figure in Ahmedabad with apparent ties to a banned Muslim group and were determining whether he had any connection to the attack.
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