families were living there not by choice but because they were too frightened to return to their original place of habitation; · even in these colonies, there was an air of insecurity and hostility from state agencies including the police; · some of the residents of these colonies were witnesses in some of the key cases relating to the Gujarat violence. The NCM report went on to assert that:
· the Gujarat government had failed to provide a safe environment for these people or facilitate their return to their homes; · there has been no support from the state to compensate them for their loss of habitual place of residence.
During its visit to the state in October 2006, the NCM raised the issue of compensation (an amount of Rs. 19.10 crores [approximately $4,3million]) which the Government of Gujarat had returned to the Government of India on the grounds that there were no unfinished tasks of rehabilitation arising from the communal violence. Human rights activists and the NCM have highlighted that their observations in visits to the "relief colonies" very much contradict the state government%u2019s assessment.
