For the past one month, Habib Mansoori, a tent shop owner, had been preparing for his daughter’s wedding scheduled for January 23. But misfortune struck on Wednesday night, when his house and shop were set ablaze by miscreants during the communal violence that claimed three lives.
“A new motorcycle, a refrigerator, a portable flour mill, jewellery and cash, among other things, that I had arranged for the wedding were reduced to ashes,” says Mr. Mansoor. Of the 70-80 Muslim households at Kotadi, 35-40 houses were gutted.
A visit to Kotadi, during a six-hour window of curfew relaxation, reveals a picture of soot and debris everywhere. Property was looted, vehicles — mostly motorcycles — were burnt and cattle stolen by arsonists, villagers claimed. By the time the violence abated, 42 houses and shops had been gutted, three persons (two Hindus at Moheda and one Muslim at Kotadi) were dead and seven persons, most of them Hindus, injured.
At Kotadi, there are two parallel, though vastly distinct, narratives of what happened on Wednesday night. The dominant narrative comes from the Hindu community, the police and the administration: some Muslim youths confronted RSS activists returning from a path sanchalan exercise and passed comments on their RSS uniform. This led to an altercation, following which the Muslim youths opened fire. More RSS activists soon gathered and a full-blown fight ensued. The youths who opened fire fled towards nearby Moheda and fired more shots there, killing two people.
Hearing the news of the killings, more Hindus gathered at Kotadi. Some more shots were fired and Raja Khan, a 20-year-old boy, was killed. Then started the destruction, which led to the Muslim houses and shops going up in flames.
The other narrative, from Muslims, claims there was no wrongdoing on the part of Muslim youths and blames the RSS. “We don’t know who opened fire first. The deaths at Moheda could be the result of personal rivalry,” says Shahzad Khan, a resident. “They say Pathans smuggle in weapons. Had we had weapons, would we have remained silent while our houses were being burnt?”
All Muslims who spoke to The Hindu said the violence was meticulously planned. “It was a minor scuffle that happened out of the blue. So how did they manage to get enough fuel/kerosene to douse and set 35-40 houses on fire within half-hour?” asks Sherdad Khan, who claims some miscreants tried to set his house too on fire even when curfew was on.
While the veracity of these claims could not be confirmed, a minor altercation did break out on Friday.
What really stoked insecurity among Muslims was the visit of local MLA Nandlal Meena — also a Minister in the Vasundhara Raje Cabinet —for the funeral of the two Hindus who died at Moheda.
“We do not know how long this peace will remain,” says Shahzad. “Minister Nandlal Meena came here, interacted with Hindus but did not bother to visit our locality or talk to us.”
When contacted by The Hindu , Mr. Meena asked: “Are you out of your mind? These people fired shots at Hindus and you expect me to go and meet them? So what if I am the MLA of that region? Should I keep running after them to ask what problems they have? ... You Press people should change your perspective... who are you defending? Have you sided with them, too?”
In the district headquarters Pratapgarh, people are mostly unaware of the incident. “This is a manufactured riot. Otherwise, Hindus and Muslims have had no issues in this region,” says Maqsood Khan, a hardware shop owner. “When riots broke out at Kotadi, I was concerned, but I took my younger son from Pratapgarh to Dhamotar, where I live, because that is how safe we feel there despite there being only two Muslim houses.
“I do not understand why the violence spread to faraway villages such as Salamgarh and Raipur, where there are only a couple of Muslim households. Why did they burn down those houses?” asks Maqsood.
Trouble had been brewing at Kotadi for the last two months after a scuffle broke out among school students when someone wrote something objectionable about Muslims on the walls and blackboards of the local school.
“Things have been tense since then, but the peace committee eased the situation,” says Aslam Khan, a resident. “We have been living here in peace for so long, but for the last six months, Parmanad Menaria, an extremist Hindu leader, has started frequenting Kotadi, instigating his people against us.”
Muslim residents, at large, accused the police force stationed at the village chowki of being either complicit in the violence or indifferent to it. Only after the police from Pratapgarh arrived, three hours after the violence, was the situation brought under control.
Hindus in the village, however, trace the history of the trouble to another incident six months ago. “A Muslim teacher from another village, but posted in Kotadi, molested a girl student. That is when tension started building up,” says Hemant Giri.
The authorities say the situation is under control and all those responsible for the violence have been rounded up. Two hundred members of the police and the Special Task Force are stationed in the village, some of whom were seen guarding alternative routes to the village. At Kotadi, people claimed a surveillance van had been stationed in the village to intercept suspicious mobile phone calls.
“Parmanand Menaria has been restrained and the police have taken in several other miscreants for questioning. A peace committee meeting, between elders from both communities, was convened on Saturday and they admitted that there were mistakes on both sides but now peace has been made,” Pratapgarh Collector Ratan Lahoti told The Hindu .
“The situation is under control, and we are relaxing curfew for more hours with each passing day. But bridging the gap between the two communities is the most important task and that takes time.
“But we are working towards it,” he says.
