A 12-member team sent by the PUCL to Kovai (formerly Coimbatore) to investigate into the communal disturbances two months ago, found shocking instances of anti-Muslim collusion between sections of the local police and Hindu communal bodies 

For three nightmarish days    and nights two months ago, a communal carnage was unleashed in Coimbatore (now renamed Kovai) in Tamil Nadu. The killing of a traffic constable by three Muslim youth proved to be sufficient provocation for the targeting of the entire Muslim community where policemen and frenzied mobs owing allegiance to the Hindu Munnani, RSS and BJP worked in such close tandem that their identities were indistinguishable.

Official figures of casualties — 27 Muslim youth shot dead  by the police and another 100 seriously wounded — and the police-instigated   large-scale looting of Muslim shops and homes, reveal only part of the  story. The most ominous was the turning of the government hospital in the city into a communal war theatre. First, the ruling party MLA, C.T. Dhandapani, visiting the wounded constable in the hospital was thrashed by policemen in civilian clothes. They were aided by  members of Hindu communal organisations while uniformed policemen on duty silently watched. 

Thereafter, injured Muslims brought for treatment were set upon. They were attacked with bayonets, wooden rods and boots. Some were   killed.  Even rickshawallahs transporting the injured to hospital were not spared. 
Details of the nightmare in Kovai  can fill several pages. As   shocking as the nature and scale of the brutality at Kovai — reminiscent of the viciousness unleashed in different parts of the country during December 1992 – January 1993 — is the fact that it was largely unreported by the mainstream national press. Kovai, which provided one more ominous instance of the deep-rooted, anti-minority bias in the Indian police force, remains hidden from public notice. An investigation carried out by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in 1994 had highlighted the partisan behaviour of the police in Kovai (Coimbatore) even then. (See box). 

Tempers ran high on the evening of November 29 (1997) when two Muslim youth, stopped by the traffic police for a driving license,  failed to produce it. When asked to identity themselves, they said that they belonged to the Al-Umma group. That was, allegedly, enough  reason for the sub-inspector who had detained the youngsters to start hurling foul abuses at Muslims in general. The secretary of Al-Umma, Thiru. Ansari took up this matter with the police station concerned. He is said to have faced more abuses. A sub-inspector on duty allegedly opined that “all Muslims should be packed off to Pakistan”. Ansari was claimed to have been beaten with a lathi till inspector Muthuswamy intervened.

News of this incident spread tension in the Muslim majority Kottaimedu area of the city, with the youth especially getting angry and resentful. A meeting held at the Al-Umma office continued till 11 p.m. Meanwhile, three Muslim youth took it upon themselves to kill a traffic constable, Selvaraj. When the police arrived to comb the area for the murderers of Selvaraj, local Muslim leaders assured the police that they will identity the culprits and hand them over by the next morning. 

Despite this assurance, while returning from the area, policemen allegedly set fire to some roadside stalls that night. Talking to the PUCL’s 12-member investigation team that visited the city in the last week of December, Kotai Saravanam, district secretary of the Hindu Makkal Katchi, said it was Hindus who burnt down the shops. Members of the Arunthathiar caste (Dalits) living across the area confirmed the fact that shops were set on fire that night.

According to an eye-witness, the Al-Umma  identified the three alleged killers of the constable and  handed them to the police by 9 a.m. the next day — November 30. However, determined not to let the matter end there, a group of around 100 policemen sat on a dharna in which senior leaders of the Hindu Makkal Katchi, Hindu Munnani, BJP and RSS cadres also participated.

With tension mounting and rumours rife, the first attack was led by a mob of  Hindus on Muslims, with bottles and stones. Muslims retaliated. Several Arunthathiars told members of the investigation team that Inspector Murali had instigated them to loot and take whatever they wanted from Muslim homes. Poverty stricken  Arunthathiar women and children entered Muslim homes    and carried  away whatever they could lay their hands on. A rice godown was  broken open. 

For many Arunthathiars this was  a  Manna  from   heaven.  It was also a cynical manipulation of poverty stricken and oppressed people by their own oppressors, the upper castes and the OBCs. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of Kottaimedu, a vicious attack on middle class and poor Muslim families was led by men clad in black and saffron, shouting, “Jai Kali, Om Kali”. The terror-stricken state of ordinary Muslims was evident to the visiting PUCL team 25 days after the event. Several families simply handed over their keys to the assaulters and stood as mute spectators to the loot of their property, merely to save their women and children’s lives.

Some looters allegedly taunted the Muslim women that they were left unscathed and unmolested merely because the assailants at that time were observing the Iyappa swami ritual. In the course of the assault, among other things, a Masjid in the locality was desecrated, copies of the Quran burnt, a school building broken down. 
In  striking contrast, no Hindu person or home in Kottaimedu (20 per cent of  the population in this part of Kovai is Hindu ) was harmed in any way; nor were the three temples in the area touched. Kotai Saravanam, a Hindu shopkeeper in the locality, testified to this restraint on the part of Muslims. 

The killing spree began on the afternoon of November 30 with the arrival of deputy police commissioner, Masanamuthu, on the scene at about  12.30  p.m. Another police officer, Babu  Rajendra  Prasad, leading a team of 20 policemen, was also sighted shooting  without  orders. A junior police officer confirmed this to the members of the PUCL team on condition of anonymity.  In another case, one police officer was seen physically obstructing  his colleague about to shoot yet  another  innocent Muslim.  Yet another officer was seen  pleading  that such  behaviour was unbecoming of a police officer. 

Muslim boys who came running to the rescue of their relatives or friends whose shops were being ransacked or burnt were shot at without reason.  A 13-year-old youth, Abu Backer Siddique, died on  the spot in the course of this unprovoked firing. 

But the most ghastly scenes were enacted at the government hospital where the  policemen arrived in a procession along  with  members of communal Hindu groups after  their  dharna. They mercilessly assaulted, torched and stabbed to death, both the injured Muslims brought to the hospital for treatment and their rescuers. Doctors who tried to intervene were themselves threatened. Habib Rehman( 26), who had escorted Mohammed Harris – wounded in the police firing – to the hospital was torched to death. The injured Harris, too, was murdered in cold blood.

D r. Chidambaram Jothi, a nurse who did not wish to be identified and the caretaker of  the  mortuary (all  three Hindus) showed exceptional courage and, at great risk to themselves, saved innocent lives. Accounts of their praiseworthy conduct  were recounted to the investigation team by grateful Muslims. 

The  PUCL  team  met  one Mustafa Aliyar,  who  was brutally attacked and shot by police on the evening of December 1, 1997  when he accompanied Upaider Rehman to visit the latter’s sister. On being stopped by policemen and identified as Muslims, the two were brutally beaten by the police officers and told: “You   are  Muslim  dogs and should be beaten to death”. 

As Mustafa tried to escape, he heard gunshots and turned around to find Upaidur gasping for life. At this point the police fired at him too and one of the bullets pierced through his left hand and shoulder.
Despite  the presence of the CRPF and the RAF (Rapid Action Force) RAF) – specially set up to handle riot situations —  premeditated,  calculated looting and burning down of many Muslim shops and households  all over Kovai continued unchecked. 

Irfan Engineer and Sandhya Mhatre (The PUCL  sent a 12-member investigation team to probe the violence at Kovai. Irfan Engineer, Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism and Sandhya Mhatre were part of the team. While the PUCL’s investigation report is in the process of finalisation, this report is based on the findings of the team).

THE Hindu Munnani was formed in Tamil Nadu around 1982 to tackle “the threat of conversions”  in the wake of the mass conversions of Dalits to Islam in Meenakshipuram in the early ’80s. The Hindu Munnani leader Thiru Ramagopalan has visited Kovai several times and delivered highly provocative speeches insulting both Muslims and Islam.

In the deteriorating communal climate since then, some Muslim organisations, too, took birth. A section of Muslims  have got  organised  under  various  organisations like Al-Umma and the TMMK for the protection  of their economic and human rights.   Another organisation, JAQH, has been working for  reform within the Muslim community in Kovai. Al-Umma, is ostensibly an organisation formed to reassert Islamic identity and abjure un-Islamic practices. But, in fact, it has cultivated its own muscle power, not merely to counter the aggressions of the Hindu Munnani, but also for use within the community to “solve” family and intra-community disputes. 

On the demolition of the Babri Masjid, there were minor protests in the Kottaimedu area of Kovai where, of the 40,000 residents, 80 per cent are Muslim. To contain the protest, the police opened fire on December 8, 1992 on Muslims assembled in a local Masjid and resorted to lathi charge. Fortunately, there were no injuries or deaths.
Following the bomb blast at the RSS building in Chennai in December 1993, the Kovai police arrested Thiru. Basha, president of Al-Umma and 15 others under TADA.  The  police also entered  Kottai-medu and, allegedly, terrorised  many Muslim  families — especially the youth — and ransacked their houses. Many young boys who were arrested were tortured in custody.  

Under the Jayalalitha regime following the bomb blast, the police, using the pretext of probing for “ISI connection”, combed Muslim areas and homes without any basic regard for civil liberties and harassed  Muslim families.

To make matters worse, the police  put up  three  check posts  at important entry points into Kottaimedu and  four  pickets inside  the locality, thus isolating this minority-dominated part  from the rest of Kovai. This further  aggravated the youth who  thought  they  were being treated as criminals.   

The PUCL, investigating earlier tensions in Kovai had, in  its  report  dated February 28, 1994,   specifically  named some police officers, including Thiru. Ganesan, then commissioner  of  police and  Thiru. Masanamuthu, then assistant commissioner of police,  as  responsible for the brutal and unlawful attack on the Muslims. No action was taken then, or appears likely now against guilty police officers or civilians participating in the systematic murder and arson.

Masanamuthu is claimed to openly remark while speaking to Muslims that turukans (Muslims) should be shot like sparrows and would often remind them that he was from the Thevar caste. Muslims form less than one per cent of the police force in Kovai. 

There  are about 1,200 roadside stalls in and around  Ukkadam, Big  Bazaar and Kottaimedu, mostly owned by Muslims.   The  police has  been collecting as mamool (bribe) between Rs.25  to  Rs.50 per  day per shop.  After the last elections, these traders  organised  themselves into various organisations like  TMMK  and AITUC which effectively curbed the mamool collections  by  the  police.  This loss of illegal revenue is also in the  background Muslim-police conflict. 

The TMMK  gave a call to Muslims all over Tamil  Nadu  to  observe December 6 — Babri-Masjid  demolition  day – as a Black Day and to participate in the protest procession. A poster war that heightened tensions followed in the weeks preceding the violence, with the Hindu  Munnani  putting up posters heralding December 6 as Victory Day. Other anonymous provocative posters also contributed their bit to fuel passions.