Author: Sandeep Unnithan
Publication: India Today
Date: May 30, 2011
URL: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/story/land-acquisition-farmers-stir-noida-villagers-deny-rahul-claim-of-human-ash-in-bhatta-parsaul/1/138764.html
Introduction: Rahul Gandhi sought a Political
opportunity in Bhatta-Parsaul. Exaggeration killed the story.
At the centre of the twin Bhatta-Parsaul villages
near Delhi lies India's most contentious heap of ashes. Charred hay and lumps
of burnt plastic guarded by sweaty Uttar Pradesh policemen. A few bones were
taken away by a forensics team for investigation. Yet, neither the bones nor
the pile of ashes can substantiate the picture of a terrible pogrom painted
by Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi the previous day.
"Quite severe atrocities taking place
there... There are 74 heaps of ash with dead bodies in them. Everybody in
the village knows it. We can give you pictures. Women have been raped, people
have been thrashed. Houses have been destroyed," Rahul told reporters
soon after leading a delegation of villagers to meet Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh.
On May 7, a four-month-old agitation by the
villagers over land compensation turned violent. Two policemen were killed
and the district magistrate was wounded in firing allegedly by villagers.
Four villagers died in police firing that followed. Villagers say the police
went on the rampage, mercilessly lathi-charging them and burning property.
The Gandhi scion slipped past police cordons riding pillion on a motorcycle
a week later.
Two years ago, the villagers sold their land
for the 165-km Yamuna expressway from Agra to Noida via Mathura. Recently,
however, they began demanding greater compensation. Thus began the agitation
that resulted in the tragic events of May 7.
Inspired by rumours of "massacres",
Rahul's office sent out pictures of the violence and the heaps of ash with
"bones". However, no one in the villages can point to anyone who
has been shot or raped. Even the people who fled the villages fearing police
excesses have begun trickling in.
Bhatta-Parsaul is no Nandigram, though it
may have smelled like an excellent opportunity for the Congress to go on the
offensive against the Mayawati government. Sensing a rapid unraveling of the
fable, the Congress was in full damage-control mode in 48 hours. "I don't
want to comment on Rahul Gandhi's statement. If there are bones then don't
get into numbers. Enquire into the nature of assault and plunder," Congress
spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi said. "There was a 70-foot diameter mound
of ashes. I don't know how 70 became 74 and ashes became bodies," Dwivedi
said. The heap is seven feet wide, but such facts don't matter in the battle
for political mileage. This will always be remembered as the place where the
Gandhi scion scored an embarrassing self-goal trying to fire the opening salvo
for the Uttar Pradesh elections.
