AHMEDABAD, INDIA, March 24, 2002: An outpouring of emotions greeted the National Human Rights Commission team that visited the state three weeks after the communal violence began. While a jittery officialdom tried to explain to the NHRC that it did all it could to contain the riots, the victims of the riots narrated quite another story — that of collusion among the political leadership, the rioters and the police. Led by retired chief justice of Supreme Court J S Verma, the commission’s secretary general PC Sen and special rapporteur Chaman Lal held extensive talks with top government officials. “The message was conveyed very clearly. Senior bureaucrats and police officials were asked as to what they were doing during the riots, what steps and measures they took to control the situation, whose failure it was, what was the state of alertness and whose responsibility it was,” an official said on terms of anonymity. The commission also met the women victims subjugated to sexual abuse and rape. Representations were then made by the survivors who lost their family members and households.
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