They figure on voters’ list, are all set for polls, free and fear

Maretha village, 10 km from Vadodara, has spelt it out for its minority community: only those who owned and tilled land in the village can return. Or just nine of the 82 families who once lived there. Panwad’s message is more subtle but equally clear. Muslims are returning to this village in Vadodara district to find their homes and shops occupied by new owners.

Abdul Ghachi, who fled Maretha the day the riots started to the Fatehpura relief camp, says: ‘‘I own a house in the village, we have a ration card, my family is enrolled in the voters’ list in the gram panchayat. But all this does not count. It is my birthplace and now I cannot go back there.’’

Of the 82 families, only about 25 have been staying at the camp, the others with relatives and friends. And the camp too was officially closed on June 30. Facing the prospect of being on the streets again, one of the refugees says: ‘‘We will camp outside the police commissioner’s office.’’

The Muslims fear it is a plan to snatch their property and land. Nasirbhai Belim, who owns 22 bighas in the village and so is welcome back, points out that even people like him are hardly likely to return given the unreasonable condition. ‘‘I cannot go alone,’’ Belim notes. ‘‘All my standing crops have been taken away by the people. My house has been looted and razed to the ground. How would I feel secure now at that place? They will kill us.’’

The Muslims in Panwad know the feeling. The Hindus of the village, mostly traders, were open about not wanting them back. Determined to show ‘‘normalcy’’, the administration, Muslims claim, browbeat them into leaving the Chotaudepur camp and returning home.

The process began with police escorting the refugees to the village and taking them back to Chhotaudepur in the evening. This went on for a week and then refugees started returning in batches to what were once their houses. Three dozen SRP personnel still remain, most of them at Soni Falia that bore the brunt of the mob fury.

Other Muslims came when they heard rumours that they would receive ration for the next six months only if they stayed in the village.

‘‘We want to be around when the headcount is taken,’’ says Nargisbanu, who returned with her husband, a driver, last week. They are not sure who told them this but are sure they will miss out on government help if they stay away. Kawant Mamlatdar Anil Chaudhary denies having laid down any such condition, and says he had given victims the option of collecting the ration in Chhotaudepur or Panwad. He says they chose the latter.

That seems unlikely. The community’s days are spent trying to clear their homes or shops of rubble or encroachers, and their nights huddled together in the few homes owned by them with a roof still overhead.

Rahman Umar’s cycle-shop in Panwad was looted during the riots and now a tribal sits there, selling cutlery. Rahman has tried appealing to him to vacate the shop, but he hasn’t budged. ‘‘In any case, what will I sell from there,’’ he consoles himself now. Rahman has also turned his worries to the reconstruction of his house, which was reduced to a heap of rubble and two rickety walls in the violence. He got Rs 25,000, but that will be spent just removing the debris.

Zubedaben Usmangani saw her flattened house for the first time yesterday since she fled it with 1,000 others. A shop that her husband had built in front of their house is gone. Dismayed at the sight, she wails: ‘‘They were all asking us to return, what for?’’

The Hindus say they have their own apprehensions, and the Delol blast has come in handy. Sarpanch of Maretha village Kantaben Vasava says: ‘‘Everyone heard the Delol news. If they do something like that here, who is going to take the responsibility?’’

A minute later, she answers her own question: ‘‘It is the collective decision of the villagers and we are not going to allow all of them (the Muslims) to return.’’ Another villager adds: ‘‘Humko bhi dar lagta hai. Whatever happened was done in a fit of anger, now they cannot threaten us. It is our village too, they cannot act so arrogantly.’’

Some claim they have received threatening letters from the Muslim families. Says Vinubhai Patel, a local BJP worker: ‘‘A ration card can be obtained by many means. The voters’ list is updated every year…We are not going to take them back. After all they are the ones who started it. Let them face the result.’’

Joint Commissioner of Police P.C. Thakur, who admits that politicians are involved making the situation more complex, had arranged a meeting between the two groups in Maretha, but failed to bring any reconciliation.

For the Muslims, it means either living with fear or on the streets. A Hindu trader puts it more clearly: ‘‘Agar woh kahte hain hame rahna hai to theek hai, par hamen rahna hi hai kahenge to mushkil hogi (If they say they want to live here, it’s okay. If they say they demand to, there’ll be a problem.’’)