The government in India's Gujarat state has failed to help hundreds of women raped, tortured or murdered get justice almost three years after communal riots in 2002, Amnesty International said Thursday. Nearly 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the Gujarat riots which were sparked by the burning to death of 59 Hindu activists in a train coach off Godhra railway station, allegedly by a Muslim mob.
"Hundreds of girls and women were dragged out of their homes, stripped naked before their own families and thousands of attackers, (who) taunted, insulted and threatened them," the rights watchdog said in report titled "India: Justice - the victim in Gujarat".
"They were then raped, often gang-raped, beaten with sticks, Hindu tridents and swords, had their breasts cut off and their wombs slashed open and rods violently pushed into their vaginas. Finally the women victims were mutilated or burned to death."
Amnesty said that according to local human rights groups, between 250 and 300 girls and women were among the dead. Amnesty said local police and state investigators have either failed to investigate cases or deliberately closed them citing a lack of evidence.
The Gujarat government said the latest findings are "one-sided." The federal government led by the Congress Party elected in May repeated its condemnation of the Gujarat riots but said courts were considering action and it would be inappropriate to comment during that process.
The riots occurred when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party led the federal government.
The report cited the case of Kausar Bano, who was nine months pregnant during the riots and allegedly had her "womb cut open with a sword, the foetus (was) ripped out, killed and thrown into a fire before she herself was burned to death".
The Hindu nationalist government of Gujarat, which continues in power, has come under severe criticism by human rights groups for its alleged role in aiding and abetting the riots apart from failing to control them.
"There is evidence of connivance of authorities in the preparation and execution of some of the attacks and also in the way the right to legal redress of women victims of sexual violence has been frustrated at every level," Amnesty said.
A litany of institutional failures added to the suffering of women like Rasool and prevented justice being done against their assailants, Amnesty said.
"During the attacks, police stood by or even joined in the violence. When victims tried to file complaints, police often did not record them properly and failed to carry out investigations," it said.
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