Tags:
Journalism of Courage
A WALK through Western UP8217;s otherwise bustling old Aligarh is like walking down a ghost town. Shutters down, not a soul out on the streets and a silence that hits you deep. The crowded narrow streets have hauntingly changed into wide empty alleys. The town famous for the Aligarh locks lies locked.
For over 50 days now there has been an indefinite curfew. And the 12 deaths in rioting have resulted in a mistrust between the Hindus and the Muslims that still hangs over the town.
Caught between the attacks and the counter attacks and now the curfew, business has suffered tremendously. But the worst hit is easily Aligarh8217;s famous lock industry.
THERE are over 6,000 lock manufacturing units in Aligarh8212;the largest concentration of lock manufacturing units in the country. Incidentally, almost all these units are located in Old Aligarh which falls under the jurisdiction of five police stations8212;Sansi Gate, Delhi Gate, Kotwali, Banna Devi and Gandhi Park8212;all of which are under curfew for most part of the last 50 days since riots first broke out in Aligarh on April 6. And all of them lie locked.
8216;8216;These 6,000 units employ almost 25,000 workers, most of who come from the weaker and minority sections of society. The annual turnover of the Aligarh lock industry is Rs 200 crore with almost 30 per cent of the products being exported. But given the curfew since April now, all manufacturing and business has shut down. It is a massive loss,8217;8217; says Pradeep Kumar Agarwal, the general secretary of the Aligarh Lock Manufacturers and Traders Association.
The curfew, incidentally, comes as a body blow for the industry already grappling with the invasion of Chinese locks in the Indian market8212;which are far less expensive. Agarwal says that nearly 500 manufacturing units in Aligarh have closed down in the last one year unable to compete with the prices of Chinese locks.
8216;8216;Nearly 3,000 workers have lost their jobs. This has already created panic among the small manufacturers who survive on local components and age old techniques of manufacturing. And now comes the curfew,8217;8217; says Agrawal.
The distrust among both communities has also been a major factor for the lock industry8217;s fate in the last 50 days. 8216;8216;Workers and owners in lock units belong to both communities. But as the riots spread on April 6, each community stopped going to work of the other community owner thinking they will be attacked. So no labour came to work for almost till the end of April and raw material piled up in the units. Most of our earlier orders got cancelled as there was no one to complete the product. New orders have not come due to the curfew,8217;8217; says Bani Ullah, a prominent lock manufacturer in Delhi Gate area.
Some manufacturers, however, took the initiative of getting their workers to the units. 8216;8216;I took responsibility to bring them to work from their homes and leave them back safely at night after work was over when curfew was relaxed for a few days in first week of May. Some of my Muslim workers came too but since the shootouts began on May 19 when a Hindu leader was shot, things went back to square one and no worker turned up,8217;8217; says Hari Ram Sodhi, another lock manufacturer in Sansi Gate area.
Similar is the plight of the scores of businessmen and traders who run shops in the curfew-affected area. 8216;8216;Our shops are lying closed. I don8217;t even think any customers would now come back to this part of the town for shopping even after the curfew gets over,8217;8217; says Devi Prasad, who runs a handloom shop at the otherwise busy Railway road area.
There8217;s little people in Aligarh can do but hope for things to turn normal. 8216;8216;We will only lift the curfew now after the motorcycle shooters are caught. We can take no more chances. Our Special Task Force team is on the job there and quick results are expected,8217;8217; says Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police, Bua Singh.
Aligarh is waiting.
Aligarh8217;s last 50 days; 12 deaths
APRIL 6: Riots break out after Muslims object to putting up of decorative lights outside a disputed temple in Aligarh8217;s Dahi wali gali. 4 Muslims are killed that night in riots, 13 more injured.
APRIL 7: Riots continue, two more Muslims die in riots. The city Superintendent of Police S K Verma and Additional District Magistrate Satya Bhan suspended.
APRIL 10: Triloki, son of BJP MLA Deoki Nandan Kori, also found dead in the riots. His body was buried by police as unidentified Muslim, body is exhumed and then cremated.
FIRST WEEK OF MAY: Curfew relaxed in parts and rotation in the seven police station areas of Aligarh. Simmering tension.
MAY 19: Two unidentified motorcyclists shoot dead Raju Kumar samosewala, an accused in the April riot FIR for instigating riots.
MAY 22: Two motorcyclists shoot dead Raman Gupta, a chemist, who was also a suspect in the April riots.
MAY 28: Riots break out again after unidentified motorcyclists shoot dead local BJP leader O P Gupta, also an accused in the April riot FIR. Two Muslims lynched to death on the streets by agitating mob. Curfew clamped in seven police stations areas again.
