5.Feb.2014 -  We receive clothes collected in a Church for Muzaffarnagar Riot victims.

26.Jan.2014 -  Students receive study material at Shahpur Camp (Muzaffarnagar riot victims)

25.Jan.2014 -  Students receive study material at Kandhala Camp (Muzaffarnagar riot victims)

19.Jan.2014 -  Relief in Muzaffarnagar Camps — Loi all dug up, Rotan,  Malakpur and Kairana Town (A day after the rains, team from Delhi visits camps)

14.Jan.2014 -  Tools and equipment distributed to Muzaffarnagar Riot Affected

2.Jan.2014 -  Next Target: Muzaffarnagar Relief Camps — A NewClick report

Newsclick Production, December 29, 2013:   On the 27th of December, 2013 the riot victims in Loi relief camp in Muzaffarnagar district once again witnessed the heavy- handedness and insensitivity of the U.P government yet again. In the peak of the winter cold, the government is trying to evacuate the refugees in the camp. Around 10 tents in the camp were destroyed by a bulldozer early morning on 27th December. Ironically, most of the people being targeted are those who still haven't received any compensation from the state for the losses they suffered during the riots. Along with this the feature also looks at the fear among the riot victims in other relief camps.

1.Jan.2014 -  Join Protest in Delhi against eviction of riot victims

Join Protest demonstration against the forceful removal of all the camps from Muzaffarnagar and Shamli district in which over 80,000 riot-hit victims had taken shelter. Date: January 2, 2014 Time: 11:30 am Venue: U.P. Bhawan, 4, Sardar Patel Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi-110021 [Organised by Jamia Students’ Solidarity Forum, Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association, ANHAD and other organisations]

30.Dec.2013 -  Land purchase for Muzaffarnagar riot victims

On 28 December 2013, by the Grace of Almighty, and support of donors, we were able to start the land registry at Kairana Tehsil. The land is slight more than 5 bighas and insha Allah we will be able house 80 families comfortably in it. Construction of huts in it will start once the transfer of title of property is completed. Depending on the amount of funds raised, we will look at what type and kind of dwellings we can afford to make for the riot victims.

30.Dec.2013 -  Alliance School Murshidabad gets provisional Certificate of Recognition

With great pleasure we inform you that West Bengal Board of Secondary Education has issued the one year provisional “No Objection Certificate” to Alliance School Murshidabad there by giving us a one year provisional CERTIFICATE OF RECOGNITION as an upper primary school (Class V to VIII). This provisional certificate lays down certain criteria which have to be met within a year. Alliance school in Murshidabad (West Bengal) needs your help to get pucca classroom for students and to be able to get permanent certificate of recognition. Please donate for this cause.

29.Dec.2013 -  Tools and equipment distributed to Muzaffarnagar Riot Affected

27.Dec.2013 -  Tools and equipment distributed to Muzaffarnagar Riot Affected

27.Dec.2013 -  Murshidabad needs your help

Alliance school in Murshidabad (West Bengal) needs your help to get pucca classroom for students and to be able to get recognised. Alliance School - run by Charity Alliance was founded in May 2009 - in a Muslim majority belt of West Bengal - which has unfortunately some of the most disadvantaged members of our community. The school is housed at on its own land but classrooms are of bamboo sheds.

27.Dec.2013 -  Corrugated tin sheets distributed

In April 2013 two Murshidabad villages (West Bengal) got gutted, 214 families became homeless. At that time we supported we were able to provide tin corrugated sheets to 50 families. In November 2013 we found that about 10 family need assistance.

19.Dec.2013 -  Muzaffarnagar update — need to move to the next step

On Thursday, 19 December, 2013, a Charity Alliance team distributed blankets, shawls, children’s wear, winter caps, kids shoes, ladies footwear, kids slippers, socks, ladies sweaters, thermal inners, and miscellaneous items donated in kind. The camps visited were:  Sunethi Camp 1 (Madrasa), Mansura Camp 1, Mansura Eidgah Camp, Tsang Camp and Rotan Camp.

Mansura Eidgah Camp

The team found that in the wake of media attention, harsh Supreme Court criticism of the U.P. government, relief material has, alhamdulillah, poured in from all directions. Hence immediate relief material like blankets and warm clothes, has reached the refugees. As of now, there is no need for more blankets to be sent there in bulk. For small such needs, Charity Alliance people working through the Muzaffarnagar Riot Victims Coordination Committee will be alert and will provide the same.

The need now is to move on to the next step of Rehabilitation and advocacy.  We have to make them self-reliant and help them become independent again. Living on privately-owned or government land (Gram Samaj and Forest Land), they can be forced to vacate anytime and until the victims feel secure, men folk will not be able to go out of the camps and work freely.

What is required in the next stage is:

• Legal Aid for compensation and court proceedings to punish the guilty by following up FIRs and court cases;
• Providing foldable beds to the refugees to save them from cold earth and to be used as benches to save their small belongings in case of rain which is fast approaching.
• Sanitation – provision of toilets for men and women
• Routine medical check-ups in the camps by teams of doctors going to each camp at least once a week;
• Providing land by purchasing it and building weather-proof huts. The rains, expected within a week or two, blankets, mattresses, clothes and other  belonging will get ruined;
• Equipment to skilled workers as without tools, victims have to work as simple labourers;
• Getting all school-age children in the camps enrolled in nearby schools as well as opening up of schools near the camps and helping existing ones to add more classrooms and teachers and other infrastructure. One make-shift school teacher told the Charity Alliance team during this visit that children from camps nearby come to his school for a day or two and then stop. He said incentives like school-bags, stationary, sports stuff may help retain them;
• Vocational training for the victims like carpentry, welding, electrical, fridge a/c, motor vehicle, generator, a/c, masonry, stone-cutting, tailoring etc.

During this visit, Charity Alliance has started the process of buying a piece of land measuring five bighas in Sunethi Akbarpur village of Shamli district. An advance has been paid and the deal will be completed, insha Allah, within a week. Thereafter, in addition to the basic infrastructure like toilets, septic tanks and drains, about 80 huts will be built and the same will be offered to the most deserving among the refugees. The land alone will cost around Rs 19 lakh including registration charges while each shed will cost at least Rs 5500 in addition to the cost of the required minimal infrastructure (see picture below). The Charity Alliance is also providing on a continuous basis tools to skilled workers and books and related material to students in camps.

www.charityalliance.in

Charity Alliance (Regd. Trust for relief and welfare in India)
D-84 Abul Fazal Enclave-I
Jamia Nagar,
New Delhi 110025
 

In a camp locals have contributed bricks to make some huts. Charity Alliance intends to make similar huts on the land once purchased.
 

14.Dec.2013 -  Muzaffarnagar Relief - Help us with buying land for the victims and then to make small huts for them.

7.Dec.2013 -  Muzaffarnagar Relief - Tools for Masons, Carpenters, Plumbers, Mobile Repair, Welders worth Rs 52760 supplied.

6.Dec.2013 -  Coordination office opened for Muzaffarnagar riot victims

New Delhi: The Coordination Committee for the Muzaffarnagar riot victims opened its office at Kairana, Distt. Shamli, to care, monitor, offer and coordinate relief to the victims of Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Bhagpat riot victims of September 2013 who are lodged in over two dozen camps in the districts of Muzaffarnagar and Shamli.

Chairman of the Coordination Committee, Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan inaugurated the office located on Panipat Road, Opp. Satab Singh Market in Kairana town on Thursday, 5 December. The Coordination Committee is run by Charity Alliance in cooperation with Afkar India Foundation. Representatives of riot victims, dignitaries of the area and journalists were present on the occasion.

Dr. Khan, who heads Charity Alliance and the All India Muslim Majlis Mushawarat, said this office will monitor, coordinate and offer relief to the needy people in the camps. It is also taking up the legal cases and is making sure that all school and college-going children in the camps are accommodated in local schools and colleges.

Dr Khan said the office will continue to function as long as it is needed and a better and convenient place will be found soon in the area for the office. The office is manned by Akram Akhtar 09897974647; Mohammad Anees 08755514102.

On the occasion, Dr. Khan distributed books and other related material and stationary to students of classes 7 to 12. He said that Charity Alliance has undertaken the responsibility of providing tools to all skilled and unskilled workers in camps like tailors, carpenters, stone-cutters, masons etc.

The Coordination Committee team is busy coordinating with district authorities to get all school and college-going students accepted in local schools and colleges. Charity Alliance has also announced that it will arrange transport for students who find admission at schools and colleges located at a distance from their camps.

In addition for offering clothes, duvets, mattresses, etc. to the riot victims, Charity Alliance is negotiating to buy land to settle some camp inmates who are at present camping on private or government lands which they will have to vacate soon.

Photos of this function are found here: http://goo.gl/CFcenE

3.Dec.2013 -  Muzaffarnagar victims are dying by their droves: Shame for the Muslim community

6.Nov.2013 -  Mushawarat delegation visits Muzaffarnagar

New Delhi, 6 November 2013: A high-level delegation of the All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, umbrella body of Indian Muslim organisations, visited several camps in Kandhla, Shahpur and Sunaithi areas in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts to assess the situation of the riot victims who are still stranded in camps. The delegation consisted of Mushawarat President Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan and a leading member Maulana Ataur Rahman Qasmi and included two journalists and a social worker. This was the third such visit by a Mushawarat delegation since the anti-Muslim violence erupted in Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Baghpat districts of western Uttar Pradesh last September. According to a Jamaat-e Islami Hind survey, 115 persons were killed during these riots – out of which 97 were Muslims. Intermittent cases of murder and attacks on Muslims continue in the area even now.

The delegation visited camps in Kandhla, Kairana and Shamli where it assessed the ground situation and the needs of the stranded and uprooted Muslims who were made homeless by sectarian violence since 7 September when pro-BJP Jats unleashed unprovoked violence against hapless Muslims in Hindu-majority villages. Close to one hundred thousand Muslims fled from dozens of such villages. At least a dozen villages like Phugana, Lasadh, Kutba, Kutbi, Batavdi, etc witnessed murder, burning of Muslims alive, burning their homes, raping women and kidnapping girls etc. Muslims of these villages were the first to flee their homes since 7 September. Muslims in many other villages fled out of fear lest they too become victims of these crimes. A majority of these people took refuge in Muslim majority villages and adjoining areas include forest lands where thousands of tents are pitched even today. Some people who had fled only out of fear have now returned to their villages, while others have either rented accommodation elsewhere, especially in towns, or have gone to live with their relatives in other villages.

The Mushawarat delegation found that the earlier enthusiasm of Muslims of the area and outside has now died down, that tens of thousands of these refugees are braving creeping cold weather in tents mostly made of plastic sheets with little hygienic activities and their food stocks have almost dried. These people are in dire need of ration and heavy blankets to brave the cold weather. Some children have started going to nearby madrasas while thousands of uprooted children are wandering around because no school in the area is willing to admit them in the middle of the school year.

The delegation found out that government supplies hardly reached these camps. Some intermittent supplies of atta and milk etc came from time to time but at present such even such irregular supplies have totally stopped.  Authorities at first tried to forcibly send these refugees back to their villages but most refused to go back. Now the authorities want to open three big camps and to close the dozens of smaller camps found in the districts of Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Baghpat and even at Loni on the outskirts of Delhi. People are resisting these moves and are planning to settle down near the camps or in Muslim majority villages.

Some organisations and people have started planning to buy land and settle such people there so that they are not harassed by the police or by forest and district authorities.  

The delegation found that the Rs five lakh aid announced by the state government for each family is meant only for refugees from 12 specified villages which witnessed murders, violence, arson of homes etc and even this aid is not reaching all the uprooted families entitled to it. One objectionable aspect of this aid is that recipients have to sign an affidavit in which they forsake their right to return to their villages, which means that soon their properties and homes will be usurped by others. It also came to light that no central help has come to these hapless people although the Prime Minister visited some of these camps in mid-September itself.

The delegation found that though some madrasas and local people have rendered a yeoman’s service to help these hapless people in their hour of distress, some local sharks too have started exploiting the situation and are diverting aid coming from outside and selling the same in the market.

While appealing to the people to continue to help these hapless people, Mushawarat requests all donors to physically come to the camps and distribute the aid personally to the deserving recipients instead of sending it or delivering it to managers of camps.

The camp people require ration including dried milk, heavy blankets (razaees with mattresses) and water-proof tents. The camps also need medical help in the form of doctors and medicines.

Concerned donors should come forward to buy land for these refugees who are camping on private or forest land which they will have to vacate soon. Forest department has filed FIRs against them but there is no physical attempt until now to uproot the camps on forest land.

Mushawarat and Charity Alliance, the organisation run by Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan, may be contacted by people willing to buy and donate land to settle these uprooted people. Both organisations are continuing relief efforts. Mushawarat has just ordered 300 blanket and mattress sets which will be ready for dsitribution after a week while Charity Alliance has agreed to buy some land and offer the same to the poorest among the uprooted people.

[end]

 

For more pictures click here.

 

INFORMATION FOR DONORS:

You may visit Charity Alliance website to donate. The cost of around 100 sq. yard land (suitable for one family) is approximately Rs. 100,000. One set of blanket-mattress (razaee-gaddaee) costs Rs 850 while a waterproof tent will cost Rs 5000.

 

 

12.Sep.2013 - Urgent Appeal for Muzaffarnagar Riot Victims. Report is here. To donate click here.

8.Aug.2013 - Food packets Distributed in Murshidabad (West Bengal). To donate click here.

Zakat India Appeal 2013 Online    PDF Version of Zakat India Appeal 2013 Online