Riot victims at a relief camp in Sabarkantha district, 150 kms south of Ahmedabad

THE MAXIMUM economic loss that Muslims suffered was in Sabarkantha district, with hundreds of Muslim houses and businesses razed to the ground. Anil Patel, the VHP vibhag pramukh (departmental chief), was among the key planners of the carnage here. He told TEHELKA that after the Sabarmati incident, he had taken a vow to kill at least 500 Muslims, failing which he would relinquish the VHP office he was holding. “Our war cry was ‘Lock the door from outside and burn the Muslims from the inside’,” Patel told TEHELKA. He also said he had openly urged the VHP and RSS cadres to go out and kill Muslims and burn their properties. There was hardly a village in Sabarkantha where Muslim houses and businesses were not torched, Patel said. A total of 126 Muslim houses were reduced to ashes in Patel’s own village, Dhansura, he revealed.

Patel said there while was no single strategy, the intent was to inflict maximum casualties and damage on Muslims. He also said that Pravin Togadia had been coordinating matters at the district level during the carnage. Patel said Togadia told him to work in such a way so as to ensure that important VHP workers were not booked and sent behind bars. In Sabarkantha, 1,545 houses and 1,237 business of Muslims were torched, and 549 shops were ransacked.