Citizen (riot refugee) Nagar: After 15 yrs, no govt school, no hospital, no piped water

“28-2-2002 GODHRA Rayot, Naroda Patiya, efackter visthapit cooloni (Rehabilitation Colony for those affected by 28-2-2002 Godhra riot from Naroda Patiya),” reads the scrawl on a black signboard at the entrance to Citizen Nagar. In the backdrop is a huge black mound that rises almost 135 m high. This is where Ahmedabad dumps its garbage.

“And here, Citizen Nagar, is where we have been put since 2003,” says Nadeemuddin Saiyyed, 52, one of the earliest residents of the colony that was set up on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

Citizen Nagar is where 116 familiesfromnarodapatiya—and some from Gulbarg Society — were resettled in 2003 after over 100 were killed in these colonies on February 28, 2002 following the attack on the Sabarmati Express in which 59 passengers, including kar sevaks from Ayodhya, were killed in Godhra.

Now, 15 years after the riots, little has changed, say residents, except that the landfill behind them has got bigger, darker and the smouldering fires there more frequent.

Rows of shanties — one room-kitchen-toilet quarters with corrugated tin sheets for roofs — line either side of a 10foot-wide road that’s slushy with sewage. The colony has no corporation schools for its 100-odd children, no health centre and no piped water.

Built by the Kerala State Muslim League Relief Committee and the Citizen Relief Service of Shah-e-alam, initially 30 families

Javed Raja Rehab colony for victims of Gulbarg and Naroda Patiya massacres sits next to Ahmedabad’s landfill site.