Hyderabad, June 2 -- We learnt that in the afternoon of February 28, 2002, in Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad, a crowd armed with swords, iron rods and petrol bombs gathered outside a cluster of homes. Inside, Muslim families hid behind locked doors, listening to slogans calling for their deaths. Police units were stationed nearby. They did not intervene.

When the mob broke through the gates, men were dragged into the street and butchered. It seems houses were set ablaze with people still inside. Allegedly, former MP Ehsan Jafri repeatedly called the police and senior officials for protection. Help never came and by the end of the massacre, 69 people were dead.

Significantly, not a single officer had fired a shot to stop the killing. You s...