2002 RIOTS and present day Saints.

We are at the 9th and a half years post the riots of 2002 and the resulting communal differences in Gujarat which left indelible scars in the minds and hearts of a majority of the Muslim community; few would want to re-collect the horror they witness and the pain they had gone through. Like a bad medicine, one has to swallow it all up and hope that such atrocities should never ever happen again and not even in their wildest dreams ever want to go through such horror.

Death came on swift wings for a whole lot of unfortunate souls; the tyranny of a system which failed to embrace it’s people when they needed it the most; the sheer audacity of man himself to brutally butcher, hack and murder innocent men, women and children. One would say, we should leave these memories behind and move on; it might be easier for an outsider like me who never witness the atrocities which happened in those fateful couple of months and to just let go and carry on with my life; however this is not the same with the so many who have actually lost their near and dear ones and in some cases a whole generation has been wiped out. These evil men had no second thoughts and without any remorse headed out to seek and spill blood and spilled blood they did. A system that propagated hatred among deferent level of society, leaders who gave a blind eye to the wrong doers and at times even being forerunners of the campaign itself.

History can only outline these facts but the real truth is still yet to be unearthed. A few men are supposedly being hailed as great men and being dubbed saints and men who are bringing changes and development to the country and Gujarat as a whole; these men presently are going on “yatras” and the so called “sadbhavana” (Goodwill Fast) are also the very men who where the holder of law during the riots .

We can only speak so much about the consequences that innocent people faced after those dreaded days. Man can only question why it happened but the ultimate judgment will surely come; if not by this world but surely by God.