Muslims murdered in India

GRISLY DISCOVERY REOPENS OLD WOUNDS IN VILLAGE IN INDIA - TOPHARI KUMAR, New York Times, 3/20/06http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/international/asia/20gujarat.htmlPANDARWADA, India - One afternoon in March 2002, amid one of the worst outbreaks of sectarian violence in recent Indian history, 26 Muslim men and women were hacked to death by a mob of Hindu hard-liners as others hid in the wheat fields behind their homes in this dusty village. The victims' relatives saw the horror unfold.The police removed the bodies, and the people of Pandarwada, in the western state of Gujarat, never again saw their dead. Nor, in the absence of burials, could they properly mourn.Though DNA tests were ordered on several skulls and bones found in December in an isolated garbage dump near here, there seems little doubt that the bones are the remains of the villagers massacred four years ago.Even the police, who say the people who dug up the remains conducted illegal exhumations intended to disturb the peace, acknowledge that the bones are probably the remains of the Pandarwada dead.The discovery of the remains has reignited tensions over how officials in Gujarat, a state led by Hindu nationalists, handled a wave of riots in response to reports that a Muslim mob set fire to a train in February 2002, killing 59 Hindu pilgrims. The violence convulsed the state for days and persisted for months; at least 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed.The chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, was criticized for not doing enough to stop the carnage. He has since been accused of not doing enough to bring people who committed crimes to justice. (MORE)BACKGROUNDER: CAIR APPLAUDS DENIAL OF VISA TO NARENDRA MODI - TOPhttp://cair.com/default.asp?Page=articleView&id=1500&theType=NR