Summary: This video is part of a collection documenting the events of three days in #AD4, a slum colony in Ahmedabad city, after the burning of Hindu activists on the Sabarmati Express at Godhra station on Feb 27th, 2002.
The Godhra killings were shocking in themselves, but the Hindu right-wing's systematic targeting of Muslim citizens for three days after Godhra shook the faith of all who had believed the country to be a secular democracy where the rule of law is upheld (for the most part), by the State.
For three days – Feb 27th, 28th and March 1st - the state government and state police allowed the right-wing mobs to "retaliate". They raped, looted, burned and murdered freely. We know this through thousands of first-hand accounts related by the victims and witnesses of the rampaging mobs and indifferent government agencies.
About a month after the post-Godhra carnage, citizen journalists formed the Shared Footage Group that travelled through the relief camps, decimated slums and housing societies to record people’s accounts of what happened in those three days. The stories are varied. Victims in some cases comprised Dalit Hindus, and saviours, in some instances, included local political leaders and policemen with a conscience.
The story of this Basti, (locality) told through these events here, is relatively painless. Relatively, because people lost everything they possessed, but remained alive. Here is their telling of what happened to them in their own homes in those 'days of calamity' or "qayamat ke din".
See other videos documenting the events at #AD4:
From One Basti in Ahmedabad