FACING a phalanx of television cameras, Nishrin Jafri Hussain for a moment loses her composure and the tears well up. She is talking in the husk of the house in Ahmedabad, the biggest city in Gujarat, where she grew up, and where her father, Ehsan Jafri, a former member of parliament, was cut to pieces. Ten years ago, almost to the day, an enraged Hindu mob descended on the “Gulberg Society”, a walled cluster of 29 middle-class bungalows and ten apartments, chanting his name. The house still smells faintly of the charring from the fires that gutted the compound. Sixty-nine of its residents were killed.

That was just one incident in days of bloodshed across Gujarat when over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died, by the official tally—and more than twice that number by some others' reckoning. One event to mark the tenth anniversary was an exhibition and gathering of survivors and activists in the Gulberg Society, as a step towards making it a permanent memorial to the victims.

“There is no other option,” says Ms Hussain. The mainly Muslim house-owners have never returned to live there, in a Hindu-dominated part of town. Segregation by religion is one lasting effect of the carnage. Another is a sense of injustice among those who survived the killing, arson and rape. Few perpetrators have been convicted. Many survivors believe that is because they acted with the connivance of Gujarat's state government.

The killing started with a fire on a train in the town of Godhra. Among the passengers were hundreds of Hindu activists returning from Ayodhya, a holy city that for decades has been a focus of Hindu-Muslim tension. After a dispute at Godhra's station, a Muslim mob attacked the train and 58 people were burned to death. Last year, of more than 90 people accused of planning and setting the fire, 31 were convicted, and 11 of them were sentenced to death. Some people, however, continue to believe that the fire was an accident, though Gujarat's chief minister, Narendra Modi, at the time called it a planned act of terrorism.

Whatever the fire's cause, its consequence was horrific: a retaliatory onslaught directed at the Muslim minority, who make up about 9% of Gujarat's population (of about 60m now). It affected 16 of the state's 25 districts, destroyed 5,000 homes, damaged 500 places of worship and over 10,000 shops, and displaced tens of thousands. That it took so long to contain the rioters convinced many from the outset that the authorities sympathised with them. At the time there were even reports of some policemen joining in the killing. And ever since, Mr Modi has been dogged by suggestions that complicity extended to his own role. Last year a policeman alleged that, as the riots took hold, Mr Modi declared that Hindus should be allowed to “vent their anger”.

The government's critics also blame it for denying the victims justice. Most cases have been stuck in a quagmire of legal procedure. The Supreme Court in Delhi has intervened repeatedly to take matters out of the hands of Gujarat's judiciary and prosecutors. But as yet only two cases have resulted in convictions, one of them, in 2006, in the neighbouring state of Maharashtra. The Supreme Court had ordered a retrial there after acquittals in Gujarat when witnesses turned “hostile”.

In Economic and Political Weekly, an Indian journal, Harsh Mander, an activist and writer, has described how the legal process in Gujarat has been subverted. Mr Mander lists four reasons why witnesses give up the pursuit of justice: inducement; coercion (sometimes in the form of a commercial boycott); fatigue and desperation; and, in one instance, “authentic forgiveness”.

All the same, activists, lawyers and survivors plough on. One is Ms Hussain's mother, Zakia Jafri, who has filed a petition against Mr Modi and 62 other officials, accusing them of “inaction” and “various acts of omission and commission” that contributed to the Gulberg Society massacre. The conclusion reached by a “special investigation team” appointed by the Supreme Court has been leaked: no “prosecutable” evidence has been found. Yet the legal battle will drag on.

Mr Modi may not worry much about ending up in court, and even some Muslims now say it is time to put the past behind them. But the interminable legal tussles make that hard. Most observers assume that Mr Modi, in office since 2001 and considered a shoo-in for another five-year term in an election due this year, has a grander ambition, to become India's prime minister. Some think he stands a good chance of doing so. He is perhaps the most charismatic leading figure in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political arm of India's Hindu-nationalist movement, which is the main national opposition. Mr Modi is one of India's most successful chief ministers. Gujarat is among the country's fastest-growing states. His administration is admired for efficiency, a comparative lack of corruption and business-friendly policies.

India's anti-Romney

Like America's Republicans, the BJP is short of national leaders who both enjoy the loyalty of the party's right-wing hard core and also appeal to the broader electorate. Mr Modi, popular well beyond Gujarat, may come closest. For many voters, however, he remains tainted by the massacres. That may be why he has not campaigned in recent elections in other states. He has also been refused a visa by some foreign countries, notably America.

He has tried of late to present a softer image, engaging in Sadbhavana (“goodwill”) fasts and missions to promote communal harmony. But many will never believe he is sincere until he makes a formal statement of remorse for the events of 2002. He may be reluctant to do that, not just because it might imply a sense of guilt, but also because his image as the Hindus' fiercest protector is what inspires his most fervent supporters. And yet the massacres weaken his broader appeal as a “can-do” politician. When it came to the state's fundamental duty to protect citizens' lives, Mr Modi could not.

Economist.com/blogs/banyan