Family's heartbreak quest for justice
ON February 28, 2002, three members of the Dawood family were travelling through India in a four-wheel-drive.
They were Saeed Dawood, 42, a sales manager and father-of-three from Mount Pleasant, his cousin Sakil Dawood, 37, an optical technician, and their nephew Imran Dawood, 18, of Soothill.
They were joined by Saeed and Sakil’s childhood friend, Mohammed Aswat, 42, a father-of-five from Soothill who worked at Fox’s Biscuits.
The four Batley men were in India for a social visit and had hired a driver to take them on a sightseeing trip to the Taj Mahal.
But their holiday was going to take a nightmarish turn as they drove back from the tourist attraction towards Lajpur, a village in the state of Gujarat.
The day before, the state had been rocked by reports that Muslims had set fire to a train in the city of Godhra, killing 59 Hindus. It was to provoke the worst sectarian violence the region had seen in decades. The car went through the Gujarat border without a hitch but soon came across a roadblock.
Men circled the vehicle and asked the British tourists what religion they belonged to. When they said they were British Muslims, the mob dragged out the hired driver and beat him to death. They threw his body in the car and set fire to it.
The tourists ran away but were chased to a nearby farm. Here, the mob stabbed Mr Aswat and Imran Dawood. Saeed and Sakil Dawood pleaded for their lives, but were killed.
Imran was the only member of the party who survived and was taken to hospital in Mumbai to be treated for stab wounds. Similar atrocities were happening all over Gujarat. Official figures said more than 1,000 people were killed during the three days of violence, most of them Muslims. Others have estimated the total death count to be more than 2,000.
News of the attack on the Batley men hit headlines back in the UK after the Foreign Office announced Mr Aswat’s body had been found and the Dawood cousins were missing.
In the aftermath, human rights groups began to voice concerns that Gujarat’s Hindu government, led by chief minister Narendra Modi, had turned a blind eye to the violence and were not convicting the perpetrators.
In April 2002, India’s National Human Rights Commission issued a report on the sectarian violence. It found “a serious failure of intelligence and action by the state government marked the events leading to the Godhra tragedy and the subsequent deaths and destruction that occurred”.
Although the commission had no powers to prosecute those responsible, it issued some recommendations to the Gujarat government, which it claims have gone largely ignored.
Although six men were arrested for the murder of the three British holidaymakers and their driver, they were all released without charge a few months later.
In 2003, then-foreign secretary Jack Straw contacted the Indian government offering to send over British forensic experts to help convict the culprits, but the offer was turned down.
A spokesman for the family said: “The grief is compounded by the lack of any serious or thorough Indian police investigation. The family have had to visit the crime scene themselves, find vital clues and collate forensic evidence, including the charred remains of bodies.”
In 2004, Imran Dawood, along with the widows of Saeed and Sakil, Shameema and Shireen, made legal history by taking the Gujarat government to court. In a civil case, they accused Mr Modi and other senior officials of genocide and requested 2.8m in damages.
Mr Modi has always denied the allegations.
Back in Britain, the campaign for justice was gaining cross-party support in the House of Commons. In February 2005, members of the Dawood family spoke to Home Office minister Hazel Blears in a meeting arranged by then-Parliamentary candidate Shahid Malik. Mrs Blears agreed to send a letter to the Indian prime minister calling for an investigation to be launched.
In 2006, Jonathan Djanogly, Conservative shadow solicitor general, took over co-ordination of the campaign in Parliament. He wrote to Kim Howells, foreign and Commonwealth minister, to voice the family’s concerns.
Dr Howells then contacted the Dawood family saying he was keen to see the case progress. He and other MPs will be meeting them later this month.
The family’s legal action in India received a blow last month when the Indian Supreme Court dismissed their request to transfer the case outside Gujarat.
They had been concerned any trial heard in Gujarat would be biased, but the bench said: “We cannot assume you will not get justice in the state of Gujarat.”
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Weather for Batley
Thursday 24 May 2012
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