India’s Top Court Orders Investigation Into 2002 Riots
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NEW DELHI — India’s top court has ordered a new investigation into one of the country’s worst outbursts of violence between Hindus and Muslims, a rights advocate said yesterday.
About 1,000 people were killed when groups of Hindus rampaged through Muslim neighborhoods, towns, and villages in the western state of Gujarat from February through April 2002.
Most of the dead were Muslims. The riots were triggered by a fire that killed 60 passengers on a train packed with Hindu pilgrims. Hindu extremists blamed the deaths on Muslims, but the cause of the blaze remains unclear.
Gujarat state’s government was then and still is controlled by Hindu nationalists who have been repeatedly accused of not doing enough to stop the violence, and of sometimes stoking it. Officials in Gujarat say they did all they could to halt the riots.
India’s Supreme Court on Wednesday appointed a five-member team to investigate some of the deadliest rioting incidents, the founder of Citizens for Justice and Peace, a group working with riot victims, Teesta Setalvad, said. The court did not publicize or give a reason for the ruling, which came in response to a 2002 petition filed by Ms. Setalvad’s group and the National Human Rights Commission.
