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Gujarat survivors narrate harrowing tales

Fighting back his tears, Ibrahim Ismail Ganchi, who served in the army for 17 years, said he had lost five members of his family, including his wife and his father, in the riots.

Giving a blow-by-blow account of the violence at a press conference organised by SAHMAT, a non-governmental organisation, the survivors said they had lost trust in the government, which, according to them, had indulged in genocide.

"... I witnessed Kausar Bano being brutally raped in Javan Nagar Maidan. Her stomach was cut open and her baby flung into a fire before she was sexually abused, cut up and burnt," said Reshma of Naroda Patia, 15km from Ahmedabad.

Eleven-year-old Raja Bundubhai, who is now an inmate of the Shah Alam relief camp, said he was so shocked that he fell down when he saw his mother and sister being stabbed and then burnt alive by a crowd.

Both Bundubhai and Reshma charged the residents of the nearby Gopinath and Gangotri housing societies with the murders.

"My other sister does not stop crying, my father does not speak. I only know those Hindus were attacking Muslims. I saw it all happen," he added.

"My father, who was trying to save us, was caught by the mob and asked to say 'Jai Sri Ram'," said Noorjehan Yakoob Khan, also 11. "When he refused, they cut him up and burnt him right in front of my eyes." Her mother and grandmother suffered a similar fate on February 28.

PTI

The Sabarmati in Flames: Complete Coverage

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