Malegaon
One Year After
The September Blasts
By Aleem Faizee
08 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
When the Malegaonians woke up
to September 08, 2006, it was not an ordinary day but was a Shab-e-Barat
coinciding with a Friday. Consequently, everyone was in a festive mood
and had planned new cloths for the day. The women and the children were
more ecstatic, they had applied the Hena on their hands the previous
night itself. Excited and unaware of what actually was in store for
them in the afternoon, they were anxiously waiting for the evening.
And then in just few minutes
at around 01:55 in the afternoon everything vanished. “The Imam
had completed the Friday prayers in the mosque inside the Qabristan
and people were gearing up for Sunnah, the optional prayer after the
obligatory prayers, when two bombs exploded one after the other”,
recalls Kamran Asim whose son was injured in the blasts.
Series of Blasts
inside the Qabristan
“Before I could understand
anything and feel the pains of my own wounds, I found my cousin tumbling
on the ground”, recalls 13-year old Faisal referring to his cousin,
Ashar Malik, who was just nine when died in last year’s blasts.
“Having seen us standing helplessly near Ashar, a man came, picked
him up in his arms and rushed towards the main gate of the Qabristan”,
Faisal continues, “The last words that I had heard from him was
‘Mujhe Mere Ghar Le Chalo, I live at Nayapura Gali No.1”,
he completes somehow and then broke into tears.
Along with Ashar Malik, the blasts in Qabristan had taken many more
innocent lives.
Just few minutes after this
twin-blast one more bomb exploded, this time at Mushawerat Chowk, around
500 meters away from Qabristan.
The Scene at Mushawerat
Chowk
“While we were going
to the Qabristan as we do every Friday, we saw many people coming from
opposite sides, carrying the blast victims on whatever means they found
accessible. It was when we were crossing each other that a bomb exploded
here at Mushawerat Chowk”, recalls Shafeeque Ahmed, who had lost
his son Sajid, an MBBS aspirant, in this blast. “Along with my
son, the blast had killed some who had escaped the death trap at Qabristan”,
he adds.
Utter Chaos in Every
Hospital
People rushed the victims
to nearby Noor and Faran Hospitals and when it became impossible to
treat the victims in these hospitals, people took them to Vaidya and
Medicare Hospitals located in the later half of the city.
However, although there was
chaos in almost every hospital of the city, peace prevailed large in
the city. “I found people standing on the two sides of the roads
allowing us to carry the victims smoothly”, recalls Kamran Asim.
When the whole Malegaon
came to standstill
With blast victims on their
shoulders, the Malegaonians demonstrated sheer communal harmony. Rarely
had the city seen Hindus and Muslims coming out on roads in such a large
number and in unison for support.
And then after the postmortem at around ten late in the evening, the
funerals of the deceased started towards its course. The whole city
was shaking with grief. The new cloths remained untouched. The women
and children hated to look at their Hena-imprinted hands. Still, unprecedented
calm prevailed all over the city and the most excruciating moment came
when the farewell journey of four victims belonging to the same family
started from Nayapura. “Even after one year, the moment still
haunts me. It seems to me Jaise Kal Ki Bat Ho”, says Shafeeque
Ahmed while he failed in controlling his tears.
Malegaon One Year
after the September Blasts
On September 08 2006 in the afternoon, Malegaon was rocked by a series
of explosions that took more than thirty innocent lives, many of them
being the children belonging to families living below poverty level
(BPL). As normally the case is, the leaders were quick in planning a
visit to the blast site, with Deputy Chief Minister RR Patil, in Malegaon
by 05:30 the same evening, being the first to do so. Along with lifting
the curfew, he also announced a compensation of one lakh rupees by the
State.
The next morning, it was
as if the whole Government, State as well as Centre, was there in Malegaon.
While Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was there with half a dozen Ministers,
Mrs. Sonia Gandhi herself came with Home Minister Shivraj Patil and
other colleagues from Delhi. Sonia, apart from meeting the families
of the victims, also met the local community leaders. They expressed
their displeasures over the compensation amount and inadequate availability
of the medical facilities in the town. And probably on Sonia’s
behest, the Government promised several packages for the overall development
of the town.
However, one year after the
blasts, a look at the promises made by the Government reveals that,
despite vigorous follow ups, many of the promises are gathering the
dust in Government offices
Identical Tragedies,
Different Compensations
Citing the example of the
Mumbai Blasts where the Government had announced a compensation of five
lakhs along with Government job to the victims’ family, the Malegaonians
sought the equal treatment for them. And when their repeated pleas were
taken with deaf ears by the State, they turned to the Central Government,
which announced the compensation of additional one lakh rupees but failed
in giving any kind of assurances for the Government jobs.
Today, though the families
of the victims have received the amount promised by the State, they
are still struggling for getting the equal amount promised by the Centre.
“And since most of the victims were the only earning hands for
their families, their families are forced to live under miserable conditions
with their children being forcibly dropped from the schools”,
observes Advocate Niyaz Lodhi.
Civil Hospital
It is ironic that a city
of over half a million people lacks a single Government Hospital with
adequate medical facilities. Many believed if there was a good hospital
in place as promised by Vilasrao Deshmukh after October 2001 riots,
it could have saved many precious lives. At least this time, the Malegaonians
are lucky that the sacrifice of their innocent sons has earned them
a hospital.
And if Amol Ghule, the Project
Manager belonging to M/s VM Matere, is to be believed, they would be
completing the 74.4 million hospital building by March 11, 2008. “However,
once the building is complete, there still remains many more things
to be done before the hospital is fully ready for the actual functioning”,
observes Dinesh Jadhav, the Project In charge.
Dearth of Basic Amenities
Continues
“No roads, no proper
sanitation and the problems in plenty, I had never seen such a place
in my whole life”, Dr. Sayyeda Hameed, Member Planning Commission
had remarked after visiting Malegaon. Shocked, she asserted to lend
a helping hand for the revival of the town. She chaired several meetings
in Delhi for this purpose and on her repeated requests the State reiterated
it’s committed for the development of Malegaon.
However, despite big claims,
when the State recently launched the New Industrial Policy, there was
nothing for the Malegaonians in that. At the same time, the civic body
itself is in such a financial crunch now that it has no money to pay
even its employees’ salary.
And the Blasts Changed
the Face of Malegaon
Even before the September
08, 2006 Serial Blasts, Malegaon remained in the headlines though most
of the times for the bad reasons. And the reason? It is the series of
communal riots that has earned the town a bad name not only in the country
but all over the world. And the credit for this also goes to some sections
of the media that, more or less, concentrates on the negative sides
of the town more than the virtues of the city and its residents. Even
now the tag of the city ‘being a communally sensitive place’
is haunting the Malegaonians and wherever they go they are greeted with,
Oh! From Malegaon, Sab Theek to Hai? Bahut Riots Hote Hain Waha, Nahi?”
This doesn’t stop here;
the Malegaonians paid such a heavy price for this fabricated image that
they remained backward while their counterparts in cities like Nashik,
Jalgaon and Aurangabad continue to flourish in every sense. “Whenever
we invite the industrialists for investing in Malegaon, they decline
out of fear and uncertainty that reportedly prevail in the town all
the time,” says Swapnil Kotahri, an industrialist who has taken
the plastic industry in Malegaon to new heights despite the challenging
conditions.
Interestingly, many reports
after the last year’s blasts also suggested that they were aimed
at exploiting this very image of the town, also, the perpetrators reportedly
believed that the blasts would ultimately end in a communal violence
and the Malegaonians would respond in the same way as some people had
reacted after the Godhra incident in Gujarat.
However, fortunately for
them, the Malegaonians remained peaceful after the tragedy and the credit
for the peace, beyond any doubt, goes to the Malegaonians, the very
people of Malegaon who lived for years with the burden of being prejudiced,
intolerant and sometimes even as anti-national. Even more fortunately
for them, this resulted in an unexpected reward and by remaining peaceful,
they not only received the praise from all over the country but the
incident that could have been a final blow to the already beleaguered
town and dying textile industry, helped in highlighting the real issues
facing the people and hiding under the debris of scores of communal
riots.
Though it took the sacrifice
of more than thirty precious lives for the Government to come to this
conclusion and it has started the construction work of the 200 bed hospital
simultaneously promising a package for the development of the town,
for the Malegaonians, there still remains a long fight ahead for the
overall revival.
Moreover the observers believe
this is probably the only chance for the Malegaonians to take advantage
of the favorable situation. “By remaining peaceful after the blasts,
the Malegaonians have earned the favor of the Government and this is
one last chance for them to make use of this opportunity. And how to
do that, is of course in their own hands”, Sushobha Barve, an
activist who is heading a NGO has observed recently while speaking with
this correspondent.
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Comment
Policy
Digg
it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands
of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page
of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an
vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So,
as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.