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Murdered Britons' families seek damages
By Peter Foster in New Delhi
(Filed: 07/05/2004)
The families of three British tourists murdered two years ago
during an outbreak of religious violence in the Indian state of Gujarat
won the first round of their fight for compensation yesterday. | |  | | Saeed Dawood |
The three Muslim men, all from Yorkshire, were attacked and killed by a Hindu fundamentalist mob which went on the rampage in February 2002 after 58 Hindus died in a firebomb attack on a train. Yesterday
a local court ordered Gujarat's chief minister, Narendra Modi, and 13
other state officials to respond to a claim by the British families for
£2.8 million in compensation. The officials, including Mr Modi, are
accused by human rights groups of deliberately colluding in the
two-month ethnic violence in which more than 1,000 Muslims died. Women
and children were systematically raped and some victims were ritually
disembowelled before being burned. The families
accuse Mr Modi and local police of failing to stop the killing of the
three men, which happened as they were driving back from a sightseeing
trip to the Taj Mahal. Saeed Dawood, 42, a sales
manager for an electricity company, Sakil Dawood, 37, an optical
technician, and Mohammed Aswat, 42, who worked for Fox's Biscuits in
Batley, West Yorks, were stabbed and burned in their minibus. Imran
Dawood, their 20-year-old nephew, survived the attack after being left
for dead. Yusuf Dawood, brother of Saeed, said
yesterday: "When the murders were taking place what were these
officials doing? What was the head of police and chief minister Modi
doing?" He added that the minibus had passed through a police checkpoint on the road, but no warning of the dangers ahead was given. "It
seems bizarre to say the least that the police weren't aware of the mob
up ahead," he said. "If those policemen and had done their duty that
day I believe my brother would still be alive. We know this is going to
be a long process. But the longer this takes, the more people will be
aware of who Narendra Modi is and what he stands for." Mr Modi has always denied actively colluding in the violence. He once described Muslim refugee camps set up after the killings as "baby-making factories". The Gujarat violence has caused diplomatic tensions between New Delhi and London. Jack
Straw, the Foreign Secretary, has raised the issue in meetings with his
Indian counterpart and offered British police forensic science teams to
assist in investigating the crimes. The offer was turned down.
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