One FIR for three riots despite 13 killings

KALOL (PANCHMAHALS): Yunus Ismail Sheikh of Delol village in the Panchmahals had lost his wife and teenage son in the communal riots of Gujarat last year.
But he has no official document to show for their deaths, not even an FIR naming them with the police. Sheikh has been visiting the police ever since trying to get the deaths recorded but has failed.But putting the death toll on record is not the only problem here.
In fact, this is one of the few cases from last year’s violence where the police has filed a single FIR for three separate instances of rioting! Not only that, the document refuses to accept that 13 people were killed in the violence.
It records only 10. On that fateful day, more than 40 people had tried to escape from Ambica society in a tempo. According to the survivors, 13 people were killed by a mob.No minority community member has dared to enter Ambica Society since then.
Yunus has approached the Kalol police station on four different occasions insisting that 13 people were killed, including his wife, Zubeda and son Hafiz in the incident. But the police, he says, shooed him away saying they would not make any modifications in the FIR.
This despite the fact that he can recognise all the people who had attacked them. The FIR at the police station by senior police sub-inspector R J Patil accuses ‘a faceless mob’ and acknowledges ‘10 deaths’.
Surprisingly, this FIR clubs together the rioting cases at Rabbani Masjid in Botha Bazar and Boru village near Kalol. The Kalol police did not care to file a separate FIR in the Rabani Masjid rioting where one person was killed.
The victim, who had sustained a bullet injury, was being taken to the referral hospital in a tempo when a mob attacked. Setting the vehicle on fire they burnt him alive.
Boru village, on the other hand, had cases of arson. Meanwhile, on the basis of this unique FIR the police has arrested Sailesh Kumar Ambala and Ramesh Kumar Parmar. But surprisingly Yunus says, “I never saw the two in the mob which attacked us.�
“It was only after I approached higher officials and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that inspector Patil approached me at the Kalol relief camp to take my statement. This happened one-and-a-half month after the incident. But by then there was not an iota of evidence left at the spot of crime,� laments Yunus.
“The reason for not recording my complaint has not been justified yet,� said Yunus, who has named Sheetal Patel a clerk at People’s Bank, J P Shah the manager at Peoples Bank, Bimalkumar Narendra Suttar the owner of Vijay Talkies and Vijay Thakur the owner of Khodiyar Pan Centre as those who led the deadly mob.
All the accused were arrested after Yunus’s statement only to be released on bail later.
“As there was no proper investigation done by the police, I have filed an application before the fast track court at Godhra to order a re-investigation into the case,� Yunus added.
When asked about why three incidents were clubbed in a single FIR, investigating officer and Halol circle police inspector B D Rana said, “I have been asked to investigate the case recently. I was on sick leave and have not gone through the details of the case.� Meanwhile, despite numerous efforts the district superintendent of police Manoj Antani and the then district collector, Jayanti Ravi could not be contacted.