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All is not lost in Muzaffarnagar

Last Updated 10 September 2013, 19:55 IST

Sanjeev Balia, a village head in Uttar Pradesh, did the unthinkable as he drove scores of Muslims to the safety of Islamabad! Only, this Islamabad is not in Pakistan but a settlement in Shapur, barely five kilometres from Dulhare where the possible victims were living.

Balia, himself a Jat, did not join the rioters from his community and with his 20 security guards armed with rifles took the Muslims first to his house on Saturday and fed them. When he felt that they would not be safe in his house, he arranged tractor trolleys and took them to Palde village from where they were asked to go to ‘Islamabad basti (hamlet)’.

If not for the village head, said 40-year-old labourer Mohd Dilshad, we would not be alive now. Others from the village vouch for this.

The Islamabad basti is the new home, even if it is temporary, not just for Dulhare villagers. Those from Kutba, Kutbi, Goyla and Kakra too have found shelter there.
All these villages had seen a mass exodus of Muslims but the Jats residing there say that those from the minority community had left the place just out of fear. They insist there was no targeting of the minority community in their villages.

The ‘Islamabad basti’ has now opened a community kitchen there. The locals have also donated clothes, which are put on a cot in the locality.

From the five villages people have fled without taking their belongings and leaving their houses and livestock there. “We have left our buffalos behind. We do not know whether we will get them back,” said Mohd Saifi of Dulhare village.

Many women from the villages were also there. They complained about the looting of their houses. “We had arranged some jewellery and clothes for the marriage of our daughter. Everything is gone,” said Haseena of Kakra village.

Asif, who just finished Class XII, of Kakra village had another complaint. “I have lost all my certificates as they burnt our houses,” he said. The village elders say they have not seen any communal problems in their villages since Independence and believe that political considerations before the elections are the reason for these problems.

In Kakra village, which has a High School in a dilapidated building, one can find locked houses and some buffalos wandering around. It also has a tuition centre run by a postgraduate where tuitions for mathematics is held.

Pramod Kumar, owner of a grocery shop at the entrance of the village, says he still does not understand why Muslims left the village. “Nobody asked them to leave. There was no tension here. No damage is done to any property here,” he said.

Jagmer Singh, a local, said the attack on the villagers, who were returning from the Jat panchayat, Purbaliyan area seemed to have triggered the riots in the district. “Several from our villages have also been injured. The Muslims might have feared that there will be a backlash,” he said.

Inside the village, miscreants damaged a mosque and locals believe outsiders did it to create trouble.

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(Published 10 September 2013, 19:55 IST)

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