(A young intellectual, a rationalist and humanist from Hyderabad—Editor)

As we all looked on helplessly with benumbed senses, Hyderabad went mad for yet another time. As terror took over everyone, infants were killed, pregnant women doused with petrol and burnt, sons killed in front of their mothers; while whole families were slaughtered, their houses were looted and set afire.

Keshav Rao Jadhav made a film Kya Hua Is Shahar Ko after the 1984 communal riots, exploring the origin of communal riots in the old city of Hyderabad. But this time, even the new city was dragged into the communal frenzy. “All the people shown on television and the people whose photographs appeared in newspapers were Hindus” says one ‘knowledgeably’. Salahuddin Owaisi finds the Hindu guilty of the same crimes. A friend (a House Surgeon in Osmania General Hospital, a Hindu) says that the majority of people stabbed were Muslims. Another says that former Minister Shiv Shankar’s son was responsible. Chenna Reddy, now deposed, says, “the hooligans came from Vijayawada”. And while accusations go on in the narrow bylanes, communal tension feeds on the instigations of local leaders. Cassettes (from both the communities) blaring out slogans in the nights with background recordings of women shrieking and wailing. Cassettes made to create terror.

Now war has broken out, and this time we hear of no Hindus saving Muslims, or of Muslims helping their Hindu neighbours. Even relief parties are organised on the basis of religion.

And so vultures begin to descend, to prey on the corpses, while the burnt houses are still smouldering.

(Source: PUCL Bulletin, January, 1991)