IND34701 Country: India Date: 1 May 2009
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Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE Research Response Number: IND34701 Country: India Date: 1 May 2009 Keywords: India – Kerala – Marad Beach – BJP / RSS – freedom of speech – state protection – relocation This response was prepared by the Research & Information Services Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. This research response may not, under any circumstance, be cited in a decision or any other document. Anyone wishing to use this information may only cite the primary source material contained herein. Questions 1. Are there any reports to indicate that Hindu nationalist groups have targeted any persons for writing, or speaking out about, the Marad Beach affair? 2. How effective is the Kerala police force in terms of providing effective protection to Kerala Muslims who are threatened by Hindus? Is there any information available on the security situation in Kottakkal in particular? 3. What kind of information is required by police in order to take action where a person claims to have been assaulted/threatened? 4. With regard to the possibility of relocation, please identify other areas of relative safety where significant Muslim communities reside. Background to the Marad Beach violence In January 2002 five members of a Muslim fishing community in the Kerala locale of Marad Beach, Kozhikode District, were killed by members of a neighbouring Hindu fishing community. In May 2003 eight members of the Hindu Marad Beach fishing community, and one member of the Muslim community, were killed in a clash which appeared to be a retaliatory attack for the violence of the preceding year. Numerous arrests followed as did a high volume of press coverage on the affair. Reports appeared which claimed that the Hindu men killed in the May 2003 clash were members of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and that Muslims arrested in connection with the clash were members of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). There were also claims that some of those arrested in connection with the violence were members of the Communist Party of India–Marxist (CPI-M) (at that time the CPI-M was the leading opposition party in Kerala state politics). Spokespersons for all these various political groups made competing claims about the involvement of others in the violence. The RSS, and its affiliated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claimed that the 2003 Marad Beach violence was the work of a Muslim fundamentalist conspiracy on the part of the IUML and the National Development Fund (NDF). The CPI-M also alleged the fault of the IUML (at that time the IUML were part of the Congress-led ruling coalition in Kerala) and the NDF. The IUML and NDF denied these claims and alleged that the BJP and RSS were attempting to use the Marad affair to fuel Hindu nationalist extremism and that the CPI-M was seeking to provoke violence against the IUML and NDF networks (for articles reporting the political affiliations of those allegedly involved in the violence as well as the competing claims of the various groups, see: „Marad – more arrested‟ 2003, The Hindu, 11 May – Attachment 1; „RSS-Kerala‟ 2003, Press Trust of India Limited, 9 May – Attachment 2; Radhakrishnan, M.G. 2003, „Blood on the Beach‟, India Today, 19 May http://www.indiatoday.com/itoday/20030519/states.shtml – Accessed 1 May 2009 – Attachment 3; „RSS blames it on Muslim terrorists‟ 2003, The Hindu, 5 May http://www.hinduonnet.com/2003/05/05/stories/2003050502760400.htm – Accessed 1 May 2009 – Attachment 4; „League behind Kerala killings – BJP‟ 2003, The Hindu, 6 May – Attachment 5; „Sangh Parivar planning violence: NDF‟ 2003, The Hindu, 4 May http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2003/05/04/stories/2003050404070400.htm – Accessed 1 May 2009 – Attachment 6; „NDF behind massacre: Pinarayi‟ 2003, The Hindu, 5 May http://www.hinduonnet.com/2003/05/05/stories/2003050502780400.htm – Accessed 1 May 2009 – Attachment 7; „CPI(M) bid to unleash violence: NDF‟ 2003, The Hindu, 9 May http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2003/05/09/stories/2003050904550400.htm – Accessed 1 May 2009 – Attachment 8; „Violence-BJP‟ 2003, Press Trust of India, 3 May – Attachment 9; „Judicial probe into Marad killings‟ 2003, The Hindu, 8 May http://www.hinduonnet.com/2003/05/08/stories/2003050804450700.htm – Accessed 1 May 2009 – Attachment 10; „Violence-NDF‟ 2003, Press Trust of India, 16 May – Attachment 11; „Police failed to anticipate it: Kunhalikutty‟ 2003, The Hindu, 4 May http://www.hinduonnet.com/2003/05/04/stories/2003050404030400.htm – Accessed 1 May 2009 – Attachment 12). In August 2003 the Kerala state government, at that time led by the Indian National Congress party‟s A.K. Antony, responded to the controversy by commissioning Kozhikode District and Sessions Court Judge Thomas P. Joseph to conduct an inquiry into the affair. An October 2006 article by Frontline‟s Kerala correspondent, R. Krishnakumar, provides the following overview of the findings of the Commission‟s subsequent report (the report itself is 78 pages in length and supplied as Attachment 14). THE whole truth behind the revenge killings at the coastal village of Marad in Kozhikode district, the worst communal incident in the recent history in Kerala, is unlikely to be revealed soon, if at all. More than three years after fundamentalist assailants hacked to death eight Hindu fishermen (and a Muslim fellow attacker by mistake) there on May 3, 2003, the report of a judicial commission of inquiry has concluded, among other things, that the incident was a sequel to the largely politically motivated murder of five persons in the village in January 2002 and a fallout of the then Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government‟s “unjustified delay” in the prosecution of those accused of the crime. According to the Justice Thomas P. Joseph Commission report, of the 393 persons against whom charge-sheets were filed in 115 cases relating to the January 2002 incident, 213 were activists of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)/Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 86 were of the Muslim League and 78 of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The rest were members of the Indian National League and the National Democratic Front (NDF), the post- 1993 Muslim fundamentalist organisation which claims to have its members in all major political parties. The UDF, especially the Muslim League, had forged an alliance with the RSS-BJP at that time to try and checkmate the dominant influence of the CPI(M) in the coastal regions of Kozhikode district. Much to the discomfiture of major political parties in the State, the commission, which was set up to inquire into the circumstances that led to the second Marad killings, has in a way, turned the spotlight on the facts and circumstances of the 2002 killings. The report emphasises what political Kerala already knew well but has tried to ignore: that the January 2002 incident was the result of “political interests and other vested interests” that developed following a minor altercation between two men belonging to the different communities, which flared up into a major communal incident resulting in the death of five people, injury to several others and damage to several houses. It says that the delay in filing charge-sheets in that case was subsequently utilised by “Muslim fundamentalists, terrorists and other forces” to capitalise on the grievance of relatives of three Muslims killed and to use it as a cause for vengeance against Hindus of Marad as a whole. It also says that the inquiry by the State Crime Branch CID (CBCID) into the May 2003 incident had failed to unravel the “larger conspiracy” and the sources of the large cache of arms and ammunition unearthed subsequently in the area and of the sizable funds used in the planning and execution of the murders. The commission‟s main recommendation, therefore, is a further inquiry, involving the Intelligence Bureau (I.B), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, into the “larger conspiracy” involving fundamentalist and other forces, and into the source of the explosives and funds that the CBCID “failed or refused” to investigate – an act that the commission described as “quite suspicious and disturbing”. The report is also critical of the role of the civil administration, the State police and the Crime Branch. It says that despite clear evidence that there was a “long-drawn conspiracy” and that the objective of the assailants was not merely to kill certain persons but “to create bigger havoc and ignite large-scale riot”, the CBCID team stuck to its simple theory of revenge killings. The question as to whether other forces were involved in the massacre “was not even an issue for the Crime Branch team”, the report says. The civil administration continued to be lethargic, failing to take timely, preventive and remedial action after the 2002 incident even though intelligence reports had indicated that there was the possibility of violence again at Marad and that stockpiling of weapons by both sides was taking place, mostly in Muslim-dominated areas. The commission found evidence of detailed intelligence reports suggesting that efforts of government-initiated peace committees were not yielding the desired results, that fundamentalist elements were active in the area and that the people feared an imminent bout of communal revenge attacks. It was also known that the original plan for an attack one month before May 3, 2003 was dropped as the news had leaked and that the stockpiling of weapons had started three months after the first incident.