Fear grips relief camps as police told to weed out ‘criminals’ from refugees

All this, as the Dariyakhan Ghummat camp recorded its first adult death on Wednesday. Fatimabibi Rehmjibhai, 75, died of shock, clutching part of her lunch, when a teargas shell burst near her yesterday. The incident has spread panic in the camp’s 6,000-odd inmates—the police say the shell misfired.

‘‘We were all inside when police started firing teargas shells inside the camp premises. We thought we were being attacked. Where do we go now from here?’’ asks Fatimabibi’s grandson Sadiq Abdul Salam.

He may have to answer that question sooner than he thinks if the ministers have their way. Civil Supplies minister Bharat Barot, who had written to Minister of State for Home Gordhan Zadaphia on March 15 seeking shifting of the camps, repeated his demand today. ‘‘I had expressed the concern of the people of my constituency. Today, it has been proved right,’’ he said.

He said he had also given to the Police Commissioner a list of ‘‘15 known anti-social persons’’ who had taken refuge at the Dariyakhan camp, but ‘‘nothing has been done in this regard.’’ He said the people of his constituency wanted the camps to be shifted, ‘‘as there is a fear of them staying back. This had happened once during the riots of 1969 when people putting up at a relief camp in the area stayed back and encroached on land here,’’ Barot added.

He was echoing what Urban Development Minister I K Jadeja had said yesterday, that ‘‘anti-social elements’’ in camps were creating trouble. Jadeja alleged that the Congress was hand in glove with them.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) R J Savani said there was no threat from refugees but didn’t rule out the possiblity of relief camps being used as hide-outs. ‘‘Mobs do not come from relief camps and indulge in violence. The inmates are not in a condition to do so. But yes, there is a strong possiblity of rioters taking refuge in a relief camp after indulging in violence,’’ he said.

However, Jadeja said that some of the accused involved in recent incidents were from relief camps. He mentioned Shahibaug, where shops and a shrine were burnt; Shahpur, where a man was burnt alive and some houses set afire; and Ramol-Jantanagar, where two people were stabbed.

But police records show that none of the seven arrested in connection with the Shahpur killing and 27 others in connection with burning houses belong to the nearby relief camp.

A Crime Branch official told The Indian Express that those arrested from Ramol-Jantanagar were not from a relief camp, but from an area near it.

Indeed, the police registered an FIR against Inamul Iraqui, coordinator of the Dariakhan Ghummat relief camp, and two other unidentified camp members in connection with Tuesday’s brawl outside the Police Commissionerate.

This was the first FIR lodged against any camp member. Iraqui denies any role and says that at the time of the incident, he was at the railway yard to collect relief material.

Earlier this month, when a government employee was killed in Gomtipur, it was reported that the killers came were from a nearby relief camp. The Crime Branch later arrested three people; interrogation revealed that they were not camp inmates, but had taken shelter in a nearby relief camp after committing the crime.

Zadaphia, when contacted today, said he had specific information about some undesirable elements taking refuge at relief camps in Aman Chowk, Bapunagar, Garibnagar and Gomtipur. ‘‘The instigators and anti-socials will be seperated and dealt with sternly. But to make others suffer for the acts of a handful of people is wrong. We should not forget that the people in the relief camps have nowhere to go. The government has to think of them too,’’ he said.