Attacks against minority groups such as Muslims, Christians and dalits in India by right-wing Hindu groups dominate the 2003 global report released by Human Rights Watch on Monday, January 13.

The report specifically mentions the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat that followed the torching of a train at Godhra, in which 58 people were killed, and says they were planned and point to the involvement of the state machinery.

"Much of the violence was planned well in advance of the Godhra attack and was carried out with state approval and orchestration... State officials and the police were directly involved in the violence: In many cases, the police led the charge, using gunfire to kill Muslims who got in the mobs' way," the report notes.

The state was, and is, under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which also heads the coalition government at the Centre.

HRW has also named the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), Bajrang Dal, the militant youth wing of the VHP, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps) as being directly responsible for the violence.

The state apparatus has also come in for criticism for doing little or nothing to identify the accused. Efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice have been virtually non-existent, says the report. In addition, the state government is said to have failed to provide adequate and timely humanitarian assistance to the internally displaced people with problems like serious delays in government assistance reaching relief camps, inadequate state protection, and lack of medical and food supplies and sanitation facilities.

The report states that 'member organizations of the sangh parivar also continued to distribute hate literature, direct violent attacks and mount conversion efforts against other minority communities, most notably Christians and tribals'.

Besides Gujarat, the report mentions continued violence against dalits and Christians and mentions that even the United Nations is increasingly recognising 'caste-based discrimination (as a) violation of international law'.

It also claims that the Indian government continued to exploit rhetoric surrounding the global 'war against terrorism' to target religious minorities and political opponents, and said the implementation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act foreshadowed a return to the widespread and systematic curtailment of civil rights, citing at least four arrests of political opponents under the law.

The victimization of women continued with little recourse to justice, the report found, despite the passage of the Protection from Domestic Violence Bill. HRW also found that at least 15 million children, mostly dalits, work as bonded labourers.

The group's investigations reveal that in the silk industry, bonded child labourers work 12 or more hours a day, six-and-a-half or seven days a week, suffering injuries and disease from fumes, machinery, sharp threads, boiling water, or handling dead worms, besides verbal and physical abuse from owners.

HRW's report slams the government for not enforcing the child labour law, alleging that high-level officials advocate non-enforcement. Also, 'caste bias, sympathy to employers, corruption and apathy contributed to the government's failure to free bonded labourers, rehabilitate them, and prosecute their owners', it found.

Activists working in the area of HIV-AIDS also face considerable resistance to their work, the group found, with the stigmatization of high-risk groups such as women in prostitution and homosexual men assuming "deadly proportions". In addition, non-governmental organisations conducting prevention programmes reported "severe harassment of their workers by the police".