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Journalism of Courage
Its the only village in Muzaffarnagar where a large section of the displaced Muslim community owned land. Now,a few families are trickling back to Kharad village to take stock of that land,just in time for the reaping of the sugarcane crop the primary produce here.
The neighbourhood houses about 100 Muslim families who own a total of 2,000-2,500 bighas. While in other villages most displaced Muslims worked as labourers,here they were landlords.
Now,with more than100 FIRs registered against the Jats in the village,Mohammad hopes he can feel safe. I thought of selling my land,but who will buy in these conditions? We need to sell this years crop at least, he says.
District authorities say they are trying to rope in elders of the Hindu community to assure Muslim families that they can return safely. Some Jat leaders visited relief camps last month to urge Muslims to return. There are miscreants in every community. But we did not want to drag this animosity. When the district authorities requested us,I agreed to visit some of the camps, Kalu Singh (82 ),a former pradhan of the village,says.
We are sending members of both communities to camps to convince people to return. For villages,where homes have been burnt,the administration will first rebuild them,and then ask people to return, ADM Muzaffarnagar Rajesh Srivastava says.
Mohammad says these efforts are being made so that Muslims withdraw the FIRs.
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