[The authorities have contended
that many residents who refused to leave the camps were actually from villages
that had been unaffected by the violence, accusing the Muslims of trying to
squat on government land. In December, the district administration said that
the Malakpur camp, about eight kilometers (five miles) from the Bhura camp, was
no longer recognized as a relief operation.]
By Betwa Sharma
 |
Betwa Sharma
A house being
constructed in Bhura camp in Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh, on Thursday.
|
BHURA CAMP , Uttar Pradesh — The Bhura relief camp
set up for Muslims who were fleeing violent clashes with Hindu-Jats in western
Uttar Pradesh over four months ago is starting to look more like permanent
settlements, despite the local authorities’ efforts to force residents to move
out. Residents here say this is the first camp to become a colony.
Last week, at the Bhura camp,
which holds 60 families, men worked energetically to build houses to keep out
the winter chill and rain. Feverish construction this month has transformed
shelters of plastic sheets and tarps into houses of red bricks and tin doors.
Mohammed Islam, 48, divided the
day between nursing his sick goat and shoveling mud out of the plot for his new
house. Mr. Islam’s three sons and a few other residents of the camp were
heaving and placing bricks. “We are all helping each other in building houses.
It saves costs, but there is also a feeling of camaraderie since we have been
here for so long together,” he said.
Residents have named their new
colony Mujahidnagar, which means “a place for those who have struggled.”
More than 50,000 people were
displaced and 61 lives were lost in the religious violence that spread across
the sugarcane districts of Muzaffarnagar and Shamli, where camps were later set
up in Muslim-majority areas.
Media coverage over the cold
conditions at the camps as the winter set in and the outrage over the deaths of
children who were living in tents pushed local administration to close all
camps in the Muzaffarnagar district by early January.
Residents were moved or told to
find vacant buildings to keep warm or to return to their home villages.
Recipients of 500,000 rupees ($8,000) in state compensation, who were barred
from returning to their villages as a condition for aid, were told to construct
their own houses.
The authorities have contended
that many residents who refused to leave the camps were actually from villages
that had been unaffected by the violence, accusing the Muslims of trying to
squat on government land. In December, the district administration said that
the Malakpur camp, about eight kilometers (five miles) from the Bhura camp, was
no longer recognized as a relief operation.
Yet construction has continued at
the larger camp, which now has about 30 brick houses and 700 families. The
extra construction hasn’t helped protect children from the cold, however.
On Thursday, men gathered to
offer a last prayer for Shabnam, a 7-month-old girl, who they said had died
that morning from pneumonia, the 29th death of a child at the camp since
November.
As the call for a mourning prayer
rose from a makeshift mosque of plastic sheets and wood, her mother, Saira
Bano, 35, sobbed into a neighbor’s chest. “She died on the last note of the
morning prayer,” she said.
Sympathetic onlookers explained
that Shabnam’s parents had spent 2,500 rupees, or $40, for a private doctor,
but they could not protect her against the cold. Shabnam’s parents had built a
small brick house for their seven children, but Ms. Bano said that rain had
still seeped through the plastic roof this week.
Residents of Bhura and Malakpur
camps said donations and Muslim charities are financing each of their houses
for 15,000 rupees, which is just enough to buy poor quality bricks for the
walls but not enough for a proper roof.
Haji Dilshad, manager of the
Malakpur camp, said that more families were joining the 700 families from last
year, including a few from those camps that were forcibly closed by the
government since December.
The residents of Bhura and
Malakpur said that they fended off the authorities by refusing outright to move
and drawing steadfast support from the Muslim villages around them.
After seven vehicles of police
personnel arrived on Jan. 1 to order residents of the Bhura camp to leave, and
the residents of Malakpur camps felt similar pressure on Jan. 2, a delegation
of camp supervisors met with Akhilesh Singh Yadav, chief minister of Uttar
Pradesh.
“We told him that these people
are tired, scared and worried, so please don’t hassle them anymore,” said Hafiz
Mohammed Kausar, a former resident of Bhura village, who manages the camp. “The
police have not visited then so let’s hope for the best.”
Still, residents of the fledgling
colony are wary since they have received legal notices from the local district
officials about fines of 8,800 to 14,000 rupees for trespassing on protected
forestlands. But Bhura camp residents say their colony is being built on land
belonging to the village of Bhura
On Thursday, the constable Hamid
Chauhan visited the bustling construction site to deliver summons for eight
people to answer charges of hurting the official who had been handing out the
notices of the fines. But Mr. Chauhan left after an hour without finding
anyone. “They are all hiding,” he said.
While watching him leave, Mr.
Kausar said, “These are all pressure tactics, but nobody here is going to fall
for it.”
Even if the houses that go up are
of shoddy quality, they are giving hope to residents about building a future.
Mr. Islam, who was a laborer in
the village of Lakh
Bawdi
He had left his village work on
Sept. 8 before phoning his nephew in the afternoon, only to hear him gasp his
last breath after being shot. Neighbors later told Mr. Islam that his father’s
brother and his aunt had been bludgeoned to death.
He and his family left their belongings,
except for the goat, and moved into a Muslim house in Bhura village, the camp’s
namesake, then into a cramped tent at the camp.
With the fear of eviction slowly
dissipating, and a new house for his family soon to be ready, Mr. Islam spoke
of feeling revived, which also motivated him to get back to work. He spends his
days nursing his sick goat and shoveling mud out of the plot for his new house.
“I feel like this is home now,”
he said. “People want to name it Mujahidnagar, but we’re another part of Bhura
village so that’s what I want to call it.”
Betwa Sharma is a freelance
journalist based in New Delhi .
