KADWAL, India (Reuters) - First they saw their family members being raped, hacked and burnt to death. Now they are being asked to change their religion.
Muslims who fled their villages to escape India's worst religious violence in a decade say the majority Hindus are setting near-impossible conditions for them to return.
"They told us we can go back to the village only if we change our religion and become Hindus," said Noor Mohammed, a farmer from the village of Raichha in western Gujarat state. "We will give up our lives but we will never give up our religion."
More than 900 people, mostly Muslims, have died since a Muslim mob torched a train carrying Hindu devotees on February 27, killing 59. Another 100,000 Muslims are crammed in relief camps.
And with sporadic violence continuing, it looks increasingly hard for Hindus and Muslims to go back to living side-by-side -- and nowhere more so than in Gujarat's remote villages.
In Randhikpur village, 160 km (100 miles) north of Gujarat's main city Ahmedabad, the fate of more than 500 Muslims depends on a 19-year-old rape victim withdrawing her police complaint.
"The three Hindu men who raped me are important people of our village. I named them in my police complaint," said the victim who did not wish to be named.
Fourteen members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter, mother and two-day-old niece, were slaughtered in a forest by Hindus from her village, she said.
Driving across hot, dusty roads, rows of broken walls and bits of roofing can be seen in village after village, grim reminders of unbridled mob frenzy.
LIST OF CONDITIONS
The Hindus of Kadwal, a village 250 km north of Ahmedabad, have found their own way of keeping Muslims in check -- by asking them to sign up to a list of pre-conditions.
"We (Hindus) have collectively drawn up a list of conditions which the Muslims have to sign if they want to return here," said Bharat Singh, a village leader.
"In other villages they are not even allowing the Muslims to return but we are not doing that," said Singh, showing a three-page document handwritten in Gujarati.
Signatures at the end of the document show 11 Muslim families have accepted the terms.
"Do not kill cows (considered sacred by Hindus) or eat beef; do not tease Hindu women; do not participate in Hindu festivals if you cannot maintain their sanctity; do not get involved in quarrels among Hindus," the terms read.
"Do not raise anti-India and anti-Hindu slogans. Do not allow new Muslims to settle in the village," it says.
The Muslims, who formed six percent of Kadwal's population of 5,000, fled on March 3 when their houses were burned down. And even signing up to the terms does not end their problems.
"We have no shelter and sleep out in the open," said Mohammed Nikker who came back two weeks ago after 45 days in a camp.
"We have nothing to eat and depend on relatives from other villages to bring us food," he says, sitting despondently with his family in the midday sun in front of the ruins of his house.
Both the returning Muslims and Kadwal's Hindus are in constant fear of each other in a village where until recently, they lived as friends.
"The Hindus are scared the Muslims will take revenge," said Singh, while the Muslims said they were certain the Hindus would attack again once all the Muslims came back from refugee camps.
GANG-RAPED IN FOREST
For the 19-year-old rape victim, going home would mean dropping her complaint and facing daily the men who attacked her.
"I was five months' pregnant. One of the men put his foot on my neck and another held my hands," she said, speaking by phone from a refugee camp 120 km (75 miles) from Ahmedabad.
In between long pauses and shaky breaths she recounted how her sisters and aunts were first raped and then hacked to death.
She had fled Randhikpur with a group of relatives, when a mob burnt Muslim houses on February 28, but on the third day they were attacked in a forest by 30 men from their own village.
"They stabbed me and then left me thinking I was dead," she said, adding she was unconscious for a whole night.
Naked and bleeding from knife wounds, she staggered out of the forest to the nearest road in the morning where police picked her up and took her to the camp where she found her husband.
Now she sits listlessly all day long, keeping to herself.
Rasool Ibrahim, 55, was one of the 15 Muslims called for a meeting two weeks ago by some of Randhikpur's Hindus, including one of the accused named by the rape victim.
"The Hindus told us to bring her to work out a compromise. They told us they will allow us to return and help rebuild our burnt houses if the rape complaint is withdrawn," said Ibrahim. The Muslims decided unanimously not to do so.
Muslims in Raichha village, who comprise three percent of the population of 3,000 and are holed up in a camp in the closest city, Chhota-Udepur, are also rejecting the pre-conditions for their return home.
"Two weeks back the Hindus told us to convert, shave off our beards, wear dhotis (sarongs) instead of pants and eat meat of animal carcasses which is not permitted in Islam," said farmer Noor Mohammed.
Other villagers report being attacked on their return home.
Hassan Suleiman showed stitches on the back of his head where he says he was struck by a stone 10 days ago when he went to his village, Panvad, to withdraw money from the bank.
He said the Hindus of Panvad, north of Ahmedabad, had driven away every Muslim who dared to re-enter the village after they escaped rioters on March 10.
"It is the decision of all the neighbouring villagers also. They don't want the Muslims back," said a Hindu trader of Panvad.
The senior administrative official of Baroda district, where the villages are located, said he was holding joint meetings with Hindu and Muslim leaders to try to restore normalcy.
"We are fully aware of the conditions laid down in the villages," Bhagyesh Jha told Reuters by phone.