|

April 01, 2017

India: Report says communal volence on 25 March in Gujarat village hours after sarpanch election

scroll.in

Violence in Gujarat village was planned attack on Muslims – not the result of a scuffle, says report

Two people died and 80-100 homes were gutted in Vadavali village on March 25, hours after a Muslim sarpanch was chosen.


On April 8, elections are scheduled to be held in 1,828 gram panchayats in Gujarat. Vadavali, a village in Patan district of North Gujarat, is not one of them.
The village has a “samras” gram panchayat – a government scheme under which villagers choose their ward members and sarpanch through mutual consensus and not through an election. The practice in Vadavali is to pick a Hindu sarpanch for two and a half years, followed by a Muslim sarpanch for the same period.
As the term of sarpanch Minesh Patel ended, in a meeting held on the morning of March 25, the village chose Salimbhai Qureshi as its next sarpanch. That afternoon, violence broke out. [. . .]

FULL TEXT AT: https://scroll.in/article/833371/violence-in-gujarat-village-was-a-planned-attack-on-muslims-not-clashes-after-scuffle-says-report