Naroda Patiya widows try to stitch back lives

Ahmedabad: Sewing machines whir away in their small crowded homes as children study aloud or play noisily. But sometimes nothing can dull the throbbing pain and fears of the widows of Naroda Patiya - an area ravaged by the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The violence left behind widows who are today desperately trying to make a living by stitching and sewing. But hope, they say, is running out fast.

"I have been trying to run the household with tailoring, but I get very little work," Ayeshabibi Abidali Pathan said, pointing to a sewing machine in her small one-room home.

"We want justice. The culprits must be punished. While you cannot bring back the father of my two children, you can at least deliver justice," she said in a low voice.

Her husband used to work as a carpenter in Saudi Arabia and would spend about six months in India every three to four years when he would drive an auto-rickshaw.

On February 28, 2002, her life changed forever as her husband was killed along with 88 others in the grisly communal violence in Naroda Patiya in east Ahmedabad.

Gujarat shutdown

It all happened on a day when the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) called for a Gujarat shutdown to protest the torching of a train in Godhra a day earlier in which 59 Hindu passengers were killed.

A mob of hundreds, allegedly led by some leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), VHP and Bajrang Dal, went on the rampage in the neighbourhood from 9am till late evening even as a state reserve police (SRP) post nearby refused to intervene.

Activists put the toll in Naroda Patiya at close to 200. The statewide toll for the communal violence was 1,169 though some organisations say at least 2,000 lives were lost.

Meanwhile, Babu Bajrangi, the main accused in the Naroda Patiya massacre, is out on bail and has seen his influence grow.

He is said to be behind the unofficial ban last month on Parzania, a film dealing with similar violence in an area barely five kilometres away on the same day.