The Ruined Breakfast The fact that we are all hell bent on wanting peace and stability beguiles me. Lets face it, we all wish for peace, hope for stability, and pray for prosperity. But do we ever do anything about it. It seems to me that the only one`s ever in the ``Let`s do something`` mode are those misguided souls - raised in the mullah camps, where the various mutilated versions of our beautiful religion are preached with such unidirectional tenacity.

It doesn`t matter who enters the office in Islamabad and how pure their intentions are. Very very few would be able to resist the temptation of power and the lure of authority, unless we the masses are ready and set to check on them relentlessly. The fact that our society is full of bigotry, of corruption, and of malice; we can`t realisticly expect it to bread genuine leadership, selflessness, vision, and honesty.

Having said that, there are people not unlike you, who are willing to speak their mind. That certainly is a start!!! Best Wishes.

An Equal Reaction Just wanted to outline the state of humanity in our beloved subcontinent!!!

MUSLIM WOMEN BRUTALIZED IN INDIA`S GUJARAT - REPORT

By Sugita Katyal, Reuters, 4/18/2002

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The day after 59 people were burnt alive in a train

in India`s western state of Gujarat last month, a screaming mob chased

Sultani Sheikh and her family with sticks, swords and cans of kerosene in

their hands.

``My clothes were stripped and I was left stark naked. One by one the men

raped me,`` Sultani, a Muslim woman from Delol village told a panel

examining the impact on Muslim women of the country`s worst religious

bloodshed in a decade.

``I lost count after three,`` a report by the panel quotes her as saying.

``All the while I could hear my son crying.``

According to the report by a coalition of women`s groups, many Muslim

females suffered the most ``bestial forms of sexual violence`` including

rape, insertion of objects into their bodies and burning in the violence.

More than 750 people, most of them belonging to India`s minority Muslim

population, have died in a wave of reprisal killings and communal clashes

in Gujarat since a Muslim mob torched the train carrying Hindu activists in

Godhra.

The six-member team of women`s activists spoke to hundreds of witnesses and

survivors of the religious mayhem to prepare the report, entitled ``How has

the Gujarat Massacre Affected Minority Women: The Survivors Speak.``

``Many of the women who were raped were then burnt to death,`` Malini Ghose,

a member of the team, told Reuters on Thursday.

But survivors and witnesses had horrific tales to tell the panel.

Saira Banu, living in a refugee camp in Ahmedabad, Gujarat`s main city

which bore the brunt of the violence, says a group of men cut open her

nine-month pregnant relative`s stomach, took out her fetus with a sword and

threw it into a blazing fire.

Medina Mustafa Sheikh, another refugee in an Ahmedabad camp, says she heard

her young daughter screaming for help as a group of men raped her in a

maize field where her family had hidden to escape a bloodthirsty mob of 500

people.

``My daughter was screaming in pain asking the men to leave her alone. My

mind was seething with fear and fury. I could do nothing to help my

daughter from being assaulted sexually and tortured to death,`` Medina told

the women`s panel.

``My daughter was like a flower, still to see life...the monsters tore my

beloved daughter to pieces,`` she said.

Activists working at a relief camp in Ahmedabad said many women arrived

naked at the camp.

One woman was brought to the camp unconscious, bleeding profusely, her body

covered with bites and marks and relief workers dressing her wounds said

they had to removed pieces of wood that had been pushed up her vagina...