Source: Hindustan Times GODHRA, INDIA, March 2, 2002: India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes on Saturday endorsed the BJP’s contention that the unprecedented attack on the Sabarmati Express passengers, mostly Ram Sevaks, at Godhra railway station on February 27 looked “pre-meditated.” “It looks like so,” Fernandes told reporters here when asked whether he agreed with the views of BJP leaders including…
Source: The Hindu NEW DELHI, INDIA, March 2, 2002: The communal frenzy in Gujarat that has left around 400 people dead this week had an innocuous but apparently deliberate beginning. According to eyewitnesses, quoted by India Today, the worst communal orgy in the country in a decade was sparked when a Muslim youth “deliberately shouldered” one of the passengers who…
Source: Press Trust of India GODHRA, INDIA, March 3, 2002: The prime suspect in the Godhra train violence case, Mohammad Hussain Kolota, local Congress leader and President of Godhra Municipality, was on Sunday arrested bringing the total number of arrests in connection with the attack to 27. Kolota, 45, has been evading arrest since the attack on the Sabarmati Express…
GO TO SOURCE PATNA, INDIA, March 2, 2002: During Friday’s bandh in Muzzaffarpur, called by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to protest the Godhra carnage, a group of hooligans tried to enter the Company Bagh mosque and vandalize it. A senior police official, who was present on the spot when the incident occurred, said that when the word spread about the…
GO TO SOURCE AHMEDABAD, INDIA, March 2, 2002: Riot-hit Ahmedabad took a relative respite after four days of mindless violence on Saturday but fresh areas, including far-flung villages in the state, were the target of massive reprisal killings arising out of the Sabarmati Express killings on Wednesday. With the police in urban areas now bolstered by the presence of the…
GO TO SOURCE KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN, February 28, 2002: Kandahar’s Hindu community has dwindled from 500 families to just five. But now, with the city at peace and the Taliban of Mullah Mohammad Omar gone, Hindus say their plight has eased. “Now we are very happy,” said 43 year-old Roop Chand Batija, head of Kandahar’s Hindu and Sikh communities. “We hope…
GO TO SOURCE LONDON, U. K., February 26, 2002: Celebrity couple and Manchester United football (“soccer” to the Americans) star David Beckham and his wife Victoria, have been depicted as gods for a major exhibition of Indian-influenced art. Beckham is shown sitting four-armed on a throne in a crown and robes as the Hindu Deity Siva and on his lap…
GO TO SOURCE BANGALAORE, INDIA, February 25, 2002: Attukal Pongala occurs in the Malayalam month of Kumbham corresponding to February-March. Pongala is celebrated on the ninth day with star Pooram and Full Moon day (falling this year on February 27). The 10-day festival of women only in Attukal Bhagavathy temple, considered the Sabarimala of women, in Thiruvananthapuram, attracts hundreds of…
GO TO SOURCE CALIFORNIA, February 25, 2002: Old computers are being dumped in Asia where they are releasing toxic materials into the environment says a new report. Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition A report, called “Exporting Harm: The Hi-Tech Trashing Of Asia,” details a group of villages in southeastern China where computers from America are picked apart and strewn along rivers…