Gujarat Carnage 2002
An Independent Fact Finding Mission
:
S.P.Shukla
K.S. Subramanian
Achin Vanaik
Introduction
An independent fact finding
mission consisting of Dr. Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Associate Professor, School of
International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; S.P. Shukla, IAS
[retd.], former Finance Secretary of India & former Member, Planning
Commission; K.S. Subramanian, IPS [retd.], former Director General of Police,
Tripura; and Achin Vanaik, Visiting Professor, Third World Academy, Jamia Millia
Islamia, New Delhi, was set up to investigate the Gujarat carnage of
February-March 2002. The terms of reference of the fact finding mission were to
find out the truth of the Godhra incident in which a bogie of the Sabarmati
Express was burnt and 58 people were killed, the possible use of this tragic
incident in regard to the communal conflagration that followed, and to ascertain
whether there was any official complicity in that conflagration, and if so, to
what extent. The findings of this mission will be presented to the Concerned
Citizens. Tribunal set up in Gujarat.
In this connection, the team visited Ahmedabad and Godhra from March 22nd to March 26th 2002. We met a large number of
victims of the communal violence, eyewitnesses, administrative and police people
[serving and retired], journalists, judges, lawyers, NGO and civil society
activists, relief camp managers, and others. In view of the sensitive nature of
the information provided and the fact that violence continues in Gujarat, the
names of all those who interacted with us and gave information and views are not
being disclosed.
Section 1.
The Sabarmati Express Incident, Godhra
The tragic communal killings on the Sabarmati Express on February 27th, 2002 were preceded by repeated incidents of provocation and harassment of Muslim passengers by kar sewaks travelling by the train on the preceding days. The Jan Morcha [Faizabad] daily in a report of February 24th detailed instances of misbehaviour by kar sewaks
who allegedly hit and threatened Muslim passengers with iron rods, insisted that
they shout "jai Shri Ram," and forcibly unveiled Muslim women. Many persons in
Ahmedabad and Godhra also reported such instances. Since such communally
inspired and provocative behaviour was commonly known, it is strange that as the
National Human Rights Commission [NHRC] in its Interim Report has also observed,
no action including a police escort, was taken at the time, in view of the known
communally charged atmosphere in Godhra. We will deal with this administrative
lapse in the third section on "State Complicity?" below.
In the
whole of Gujarat, there was communal tension because of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. s [VHP] publicly announced programme of . shila pujan. on March 15th, 2002. In view of its earlier history of communal
violence, which commenced even prior to Partition, and the episodic communal
outbreaks after the major riots of 1969, Gujarat is a particularly vulnerable
and sensitive State. Even though a compromise with the VHP was arrived at,
before the events in question communal tensions remained, and wide sections of
the Gujarati populace were apprehensive of the future.
Godhra is a small town with a
roughly equal population of Muslims and Hindus, and a long and bloody history of
communal tension and violence. The Muslims of the Singal Faliya area near the
railway station, who allegedly attacked the Sabarmati Express with tragic
consequences, are . Ghanchis. a largely uneducated and poor community, a large
number of whom are reportedly . tabliquis. of the Deobandi tradition, who have
been active participants in earlier rounds of communal violence.
The Sabarmati Express [9166 UP] was due at 2.55 AM on the early morning of February 27th at Godhra station. There had reportedly been
instances of misbehaviour with Muslim passengers on the train en route. One
Muslim family that refused to shout slogans of "jai Shri Ram," was according to
informants, forced to disembark from the train at the dead of night. It is
claimed that the train guard phoned his superiors from Meghnagar that kar sewaks
were carrying explosive material in coach number S6. While we were unable to get
confirmation of this particular report, it appears there was communal tension on
the train well before it reached Godhra.
The Sabarmati Express was late,
not an uncommon event, and arrived in Godhra on platform number 1, almost five
hours late at 7.43 AM instead of the scheduled time 2.55 AM. In view of the
large number of passengers, which included an estimated 1700 kar sewaks, the
vendors including unlicensed Ghanchi vendors who slip into the railway station
to sell tea and snacks, decided to raise the rate to Rs. 5 a cup. Some kar
sewaks refused to pay for the tea and snacks and got into an altercation with
the vendors. An old Ghanchi vendor, who is absconding, was ordered to shout
pro-Rama slogans and his beard was reportedly pulled when he refused. This was
followed immediately by stone throwing and physical assaults started. A Muslim
lady Jaitinbibi was waiting for the train to Vadodara [Baroda] scheduled at
around 8 AM along with her two young daughters, Sophiya and Shahidi. On seeing
the fracas, they tried to leave the station. While doing this, they were stopped
by a kar sewak who grabbed one of the teenaged daughters Sophiya and tried to
drag her inside the compartment, but contrary to later press reports and rumours
failed to do so. Subsequently this family left for Vadodora, but a journalist
who spoke with them and has photocopies of their railway tickets, confirmed the
story to us. Another informant who spoke to Sophiya. s relative in Godhra, where
the family had come to spend Id with relatives, also confirmed these
particulars.
The fracas on the platform lasted around 15 to 20 minutes before the train began to pull out. But the emergency chain was pulled in one of the three front general compartment bogies of the 16 bogie train, [bogies S5 and S6 were eleventh and twelfth respectively in this chain] and it stopped briefly when the last
bogie, also a general compartment, was, by various accounts, in front of the
main exit gate of the platform. After a few minutes, it moved to less than a
kilometre from the platform and was stopped again by an emergency chain being
pulled, this time reportedly in coaches S5 or S6. Apparently incensed by reports
of the misbehaviour with members of their community by the kar sewaks and the
molestation, even rumoured abduction, of a Muslim woman, a mob of up to 2,000
people allegedly of Ghanchis from Singal Faliya attacked the train with stones
and fire bombs. The kar sewaks of almost equal strength threw stones back. The
main target of the Ghanchi mob appears to have been coach S6 which was badly
burnt and in which 58 passengers, including 26 women, 12 children and 20 men
died. The attack is estimated to have taken place between 8.05 and 8.15 AM. In
comparison the adjoining coach, S5 was not badly damaged, with only a few
windows broken.
Since the spot is just a little
more than a stone. s throw from the station and in clear sight the Government
Railway Police [GRP] jawans reached the spot within minutes. But, for reasons
unknown, they made no effort to fire warning shots to disperse the mob. Their
role will be examined later in Section 3 below. The arrival of the firefighters
was allegedly delayed by a local leader, who led a mob that detained a fire
engine briefly.
By the time the District
Superintendent of Police [DSP] reached the site by 8.30 AM, the mob had
dispersed. Since he heard no cries or any sounds from coach S6, he had no
apprehensions of massive civilian casualties in that coach. This was discovered
only later when the District Collector entered the coach. Reportedly, all the
bodies were in a heap in the centre of the coach S6.
The enraged kar sewaks learning of
the civilian deaths caused by the ghastly burning of coach S6 then tried to
attack a nearby mosque in Singal Faliya. The police fired 30 tear gas shells and
fourteen rounds of live bullets to disperse the mob of kar sewaks. The damaged
coaches S5 and S6 were detached, and the train departed with the rest of the
passengers at 12.40 PM. According to informants, some kar sewaks in the
Sabarmati Express on the way back stabbed 2 or 3 people at the Vadodara railway
station, giving a clear warning of things to come. The inquest and post-mortem
of all the recovered bodies was undertaken by 4.30 PM. Under instructions from
the administration in Ahmedabad, all the bodies, excluding 5 that were of
passengers from the Godhra region or that side of Gujarat, were dispatched to
the Civil Hospital, at Sola, Ahmedabad. The arrival of the dead bodies in
Ahmedabad, and their consequent funeral, could have been expected to worsen an
already inflamed situation. We will discuss this in Section 3 below.
Certain questions arise about the
tragic burning in Godhra. Why did the residents of Singal Faliya attack the
train? Was this attack preplanned? If it wasn. t, how did a mob of up to 2,000
gather at such short notice? If the attack was preplanned, was it by a foreign
agency, as claimed shortly thereafter by Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and later
by Union Home Minister LK Advani? Why did the mob attack with deadly weapons
like fire bombs? Why did it specifically attack coach S6? Why did the coach burn
so rapidly so that as many as 58 passengers could not escape? With 4 exits
available: 2 coach doors on the side away from the attacking mob, and the 2
vestibule exits to the adjoining coaches, why did so many passengers get
trapped? Why weren. t concerted efforts made to rescue them by passengers of the
adjoining coaches, and the hundreds of kar sewaks? Who pulled the emergency
chains and why?
The authorities and all informed
persons in Godhra were quite categorical that there was no significant evidence
to prove any . foreign hand. in the tragedy. Because trouble had started at the
railway station itself, by the time the train reached Singal Faliya some fifteen
minutes later, the mob had had sufficient time to gather from the nearby houses
and jhuggies. There is a large slum in the Singal Faliya area where as many as
15 to 20 persons live in a single jhuggi, literally sleeping in shifts. District
authorities were not at all surprised that such a large crowd gathered at the
spot in such a short time. Several informants in Godhra confirmed that this was
not improbable. Fire-bombs, iron rods, etc. are all available in ready supply in
various localities because of the history and incidence of communal outbreaks in
Godhra.
This was particularly so for
Singal Faliya because of the presence of auto-repair workers, rickshaw pullers,
auto-rickshaw drivers, small time wagon-breakers and criminal elements
reportedly living in the slum. So the collection of a large mob at a short
notice and the availability of improvised petrol bombs and other weapons and
implements, by themselves, do not support the theory of any deep-rooted
conspiracy, with or without support of the foreign agencies. One version is that
some of the Singal Faliya residents such as tea vendors or rickshaw
pullers/drivers who were present at the platform and were witness to the
incidents/altercations that allegedly took place on arrival of the train, had
rushed to the Singal Faliya basti with the news/rumour that a Muslim woman had
been molested, even abducted, and that this led to excitement and uproar and the
enraged mob that carried out the murderous attack.
The focussed attack on coach S6
also suggests that rumour had it that the perpetrators of the alleged crime were
in that coach. But all this will remain conjecture, until more evidence is
collected. It also appears that since the bulk of the casualties were women and
children, and relatively few (only 20) able bodied men, that all kar sevaks on
the train were not targeted but only those in coach S6. Otherwise, why weren. t
other coaches filled with kar sevaks, of which there were another 14 excluding
the adjoining coach S5, also attacked with fire bombs and the like?
We examined coaches S5 and S6. While S5 was less badly damaged with some windows broken, coach S6 was completely burnt out inside the compartment. Some reports have it that passengers were carrying kerosene stoves to cook during the long journey from Faizabad to Ahmedabad, along with other inflammable items. While this is not unusual or implausible, this must remain speculation until the forensic evidence is in. It is estimated that there must have been around 150 people in the compartment, largely kar sewaks, and once the fire started, the able bodied kar sevaks must have fled first. Knowledgeable informants in Godhra surmised that the 38 women and children along with the 20 men
might have been rendered unconscious by the smoke and carbon monoxide confined
inside the coach, since most of the windows and both doors on one side were
closed, and later asphyxiated by the smoke or burnt by the fire that swept the
coach. But this can only be confirmed by forensic evidence, and accounts by
other passengers from coach S6 who survived.
But despite incomplete evidence and differing versions, it is clear that this monstrous crime was not preplanned as claimed by high quarters immediately after the tragedy. At most, according to a number of informants, some passengers with access to a mobile phone may have called contacts in Godhra/Singal Faliya from a relatively nearby station like Ratlam, Dahod or Meghnagar, thus giving at most a few hours notice. But as we have stated above, given the prevailing circumstances and context, it was probable that a large armed mob collected after the
fracas at the Godhra railway station platform. There was sufficient time for an
armed mob to collect after the events at the railway station. As the train was
scheduled to arrive at 2.55 AM, any premeditated assault should have led to the
mob gathering at Singal Faliya about that time, instead of five hours later. On
the other hand, before 8 AM in the morning, most adults and young males living
in Singal Faliya would not have not gone to work and were easily available on
call, as it were, to gather near Cabin A where the train had stopped. Though by all accounts there was
some provocation by the kar sewaks starting well before Godhra, this cannot
serve to exonerate this inhuman and horrendous crime. As for the emergency chain
pulling, it is plausible that the first chain pulling as the train was moving
out from the station was by the kar sewaks to enable those left behind, perhaps
involved in the commotion on the platform, to catch the train. The second
instance, and that too from coaches S5 or S6, is more perplexing.
The outrage occasioned by this tragedy and subsequent police action has led most eyewitnesses to disappear, abscond or feign ignorance. We interviewed vendors from platform number 2 at Godhra station. They all claimed to have noticed nothing as they were on an adjacent platform. But since they, on their own admission, would have been aware of the commotion, if any, on platform 1, and would have had an unimpeded view of the area near Cabin A where the train was attacked, they obviously decided to remain silent. The vendors on platform 1 present on February 27th were absent and had been so since the incident.
Some of the eyewitnesses and participants are obviously in custody. Others are
missing. Still others are silent, or claim to know nothing.
This notwithstanding, major conclusions can be arrived at: 1] The attack does not appear to be pre-planned in the sense in which it was claimed publicly by high authorities in the immediate aftermath of the incident of 27th Feb.
Neither available information nor the circumstances then prevailing provide
support to the theory of any deep-rooted conspiracy, with or without involvement
of foreign agencies. 2] It was an instance of a ghastly communal riot, in a
place that has a long history of communal riots. 3] The tragedy could have been
averted or at least, minimised if strong preventive measures had been taken in
the wake of the communal incidents/irritants that were taking place on the train
route and which could have been anticipated once the kar sewaks started
leaving/returning by train in large numbers for/from Ayodhya [This will be
examined below in Section 3].
Section 2. The Use of the Godhra Incident
for anti-Muslim Mobilisation Political\Media reactions
There was massive media reaction to the Godhra tragedy. With the spread of electronic media and cable TV, the horrific pictures of the devastation in coach S6, the gruesome death of innocent women and children reportedly returning from homage to Lord Rama because of an inhuman, unprovoked and premeditated assault, was the staple of media coverage. While there has been criticism of the national print and electronic media [the dominant English and Hindi dailies and television channels] including by the Gujarat government, the role of sections of the Gujarati language press was in reality incendiary. The Gujarati daily Sandesh, for instance, reported on March 1st that two Hindu women had been abducted from the train by Muslims, gangraped, mutilated with their breasts cut off, then killed with their bodies dumped in Kalol near Godhra. It also reported rumours of a third body being found. [See Box 4]. The police investigated the story, searched the village and found the story baseless. But the publication of such baseless stories in the press inflamed public opinion. Sandesh has been held by most
commentators to be a major offender.
Such inflammatory stories were not new. Three years earlier such stories had appeared during the anti-Christian violence in the tribal-dominated Dangs district, of Gujarat. There has been therefore, a long standing tendency in sections of the Gujarati language press to publish communally inflammatory reports. Such reports are actionable. Under the law of the land such reportage that causes animosity between communities is a criminal offence. Despite such provisions in the law, no action was taken. While the State government did ban some local TV channels, it took no action against newspapers like Sandesh. In this backdrop, the sensationalist and inflammatory reporting after the Godhra incident, with its gory consequences, was only to be expected. The Press Council was forced to issue a strong statement on the role of the media. On 3rd April, Justice K. Jayachandra Reddy, Chairman, was
sharply critical of the media noting "with anguish that a large number of
newspapers and news channels in the country and, in particular a large section
of the print and electronic media in Gujarat has, instead of alleviating
communal unrest, played an ignoble role in inciting communal passions leading to
large scale rioting, arson and pillage in the state concerned." He warned the
erring media of action under Section 295-A of the Indian Penal Code and allied
provisions. The centrality accorded to Godhra
by influential sections of the media only echoed statements at the highest level
of Government. Chief Minister Modi repeatedly referred to the communal violence
that followed as a "reaction" and likened it to Newton. s third law of dynamics.
The fact that the Chief Minister immediately branded the event as ISI and
Pakistani-inspired, followed by Union Home Minister Advani, in the absence of
any evidence or inquiry, further inflamed the situation. Even if the Chief
Minister. s intention was to shift the blame away from local Muslims, as some
supporters claim, it had the opposite effect. The accusation branded the local
Ghanchi Muslims as Pakistani agents, in other words, as agents of a long
standing enemy power, thereby conforming to the traditional demonisation of
Indian Muslims as sympathisers and cohorts of Pakistan. This wholly
unsubstantiated vilification was already widespread in the State but was to
become the staple of later propaganda and the legitimation of the ruthless
assaults on Muslims and their property.
To cite only a few of the many instances, State Health Minister Ashok Bhatt speaking to the media in Godhra on 27th February stated that, "Godhra has a
notorious reputation," and alleged that, "We suspect that many Pakistanis live
here illegally." Thus the equation was complete: Godhra was a preplanned
Pakistani act carried out by local Muslims. The Minister of State for Home
Gordhan Zadaphia, a senior VHP activist, confirmed the linkage alleging, "The
bogie burning is a terrorist act similar to the attack on the American Centre in
Kolkata. The culprits in both cases are the same." Through the media he
delivered a dire threat: "We will teach a lesson to those who have done this. No
one will be spared and we will make sure that the forces behind this act will
never dare to repeat it." Zadaphia also played to religious
sentiments by stressing that "Most of the people who died were members of the
VHP [Vishva Hindu Parishad]. Many of the dead children were returning from
Ayodhya." He also made his allegiances clear by publicly differing with Prime
Minister Vajpayee and Union Home Minister Advani. s call to the VHP to suspend
the Ram temple movement, by asserting, "There is no question of withdrawing our
support to the VHP. Whatever the VHP is doing is in the interests of the nation,
in the interests of Hindus." [See Box 6]
At Godhra on the 27th February itself official rhetoric confirmed the
demonology which informed the post-Godhra anti-Muslim carnage. The burning of
the Sabarmati Express bogie was labeled a premeditated and heinous enemy act,
carried out by notorious Pakistani agents, against devout, nationalist Hindus
including women and children, returning from worshipping Lord Rama. Such enemies
had to be taught a lesson so that they "will never dare to repeat it." The centrality of the Godhra
massacre as the basis of the anti-Muslim carnage that followed was to be
repeated again and again. It was also reiterated in the State government framed
terms of reference of the Justice K.G. Shah enquiry into the Gujarat
conflagration, in which the Godhra incident is the central issue, and all other
events are seen as flowing from that. [See Box 8].
Post-Godhra Political Decisions
The Modi government decided to hasten the post-mortems of the murdered passengers, and have their bodies dispatched on the 27th February night itself at 10.30 PM to the Civil Hospital, Sola, Ahmedabad. In any case, at the best of times, the presence of the badly charred bodies and body parts would have been provocative. In Ahmedabad, with its previous history of communal violence and tension, such an act followed by the public display of the remains prior to cremation, could at best be described as reckless and foolhardy. The time of arrival of the corpses by train was broadcast on the radio ensuring that a large and inflamed crowd would gather at Ahmedabad station. Not surprisingly such a crowd gathered and there was shouting of dangerously provocative communal slogans like "khoon ka badla khoon". The display of the remains, the public grief and anger at the funerals, the organisation of
Ram Dhuns in different parts of Ahmedabad, all served to fan the communal flames
that seared the city and the State, and simmer till today. [We will deal with
this decision in more detail in Section 3 below].
Earlier in the day, the VHP announced a bandh on the next day, 28th
February, in protest over the Godhra tragedy. Provocative leaflets, some
unsigned, castigating the Muslims and linking the attack to Pakistan were widely
distributed. Later the same day, the State BJP unit came out in support of the
bandh. Since the BJP was, and is, the ruling party this made the bandh a
virtually State sponsored affair. In the light of the Supreme Court decision
banning bandhs, this decision was illegal. In the light of the previous history
of Ahmedabad and the State, it was ver likely to lead to communal violence.
Later in the evening, there was a meeting of senior officers with the political
leadership where, according to authoritative sources, officers were told that
they should do nothing "which would hurt Hindu sentiments." In the light of
subsequent developments this was clearly a signal asking the officers not to do
anything to curb the bandh or those who sought to enforce it. [See Section 3
below].
The crucial role of the VHP-called and BJP-backed bandh cannot be underestimated. For all its tragic consequences and its diabolical nature the attack on the Sabarmati Express was an isolated and localised event. A Sangh Parivar bandh, on the other hand, marked a premeditated transition from a local riot to an organised and preplanned State-wide protest which was bound to result in a bloodbath, especially in the light of the political signals to officialdom to intervene minimally. As it turned out, Feb. 28th was when the greatest
damage to life and property took place in Ahmedabad. Attacks of this kind also
took place on a lesser scale in Vadodara on that day. Furthermore, once the
attacks were allowed to happen in Ahmedabad, the capital city, it provided the
necessary signal and sanction for the systematic and deliberate extension of
targeted communal violence elsewhere in the state including in the rural areas.
This also conforms to a historical pattern where communal violence in the
capital city of Gujarat becomes the prelude to its extension elsewhere. All this
only reinforces the decisive role played by the bandh in marking the transition
from a local incident to a full-blooded pogrom.
This reading of the situation is borne out by the mind set and intentions of the bandh organisers revealed in a tape-recorded interview with Prof. Keshavram Kashiram Shastri, 96 year old Chairman of the Gujarat unit of the VHP, who justified the communal violence arguing, "Karvan j pade, karvan j pade [it had to be done, it had to be done]. We don. t like it, but we were terribly angry. Lust and anger are blind." He further said the rioters were "kelvayela Hindu chokra" [well bred
Hindu boys]. He also linked all the events to Godhra; "Our boys were charged
because in Godhra women and children were burnt alive. The crowd was
spontaneous. All of them were not VHP people." He went on to say, "In villages
all these people who were angry are not our people. They are angry because
Hindutva was attacked. This is an outburst, a tremendous outburst that will be
difficult to roll back." Asked how he as a scholar and
litterateur could condone innocents being burnt alive, he replied, "The
youngsters have done even those things which we don. t like. We don. t support
it. But we can. t condemn it because they are our boys. If my daughter does
something, will I condemn it?" Repeatedly defending the "boys" for having gone
too "far," Prof. Shastri insisted, "We needed to do something. It. s said that
snakes that are not poisonous should keep the enemy away by hissing once in a
while." He also affirmed his organisation. s support clarifying that, "The VHP
has formed a panel of 50 lawyers to help release the arrested people accused of
rioting and looting. None of the lawyers will charge any fees because they
believe in the RSS ideology." [See Box 9]
But the attacks on Muslim properties and persons which started in Ahmedabad and some other urban and semi-urban areas of Gujarat on 28th February, were based on detailed information including the possession of lists. As the NHRC Interim Report points out there were "widespread reports and allegations of groups of well-organized persons, armed with mobile telephones and addresses, singling out certain homes and properties for death and destruction in certain districts& " Gujarat VHP Chairman Prof. Shastri claims that these lists were prepared only on February 28th morning. Even if
this was true, it begs another question. What was the data base on which basis
this list was prepared, and who prepared the basic document[s] and when? That
surely could not have been prepared for tens of thousands of Muslim properties
and residences just in one morning.
Earlier attempts at the preparation of such lists are a matter of public record or widely reported. On February 1st/2nd 1999, the then Director of
Police [Intelligence] P.B. Upadhyaya sent a confidential circular ordering all
Police Commissioners and district police officers to provide details including
addresses of existing Muslim organisations, their leaders, as well as the names
and addresses of Muslims participating in certain religious activities and
related matters. [See Appendix 1] This circular, and a similar one pertaining to
Christians, was challenged in the Gujarat High Court, and withdrawn a month
later. Though this circular was withdrawn, some details about Muslim
institutions and individuals along with their addresses, must have been
collected in the intervening one month period.
Victims and other informants claimed that months earlier, persons claiming to represent a market survey firm visited their establishments to collect data about ownership, production, sales, number of employees, etc. They now believe that this may have been a prior attempt at ethnic mapping to identify Muslim businesses and establishments. The Gujarati language press allegedly played its part. On the basis of their experiences of earlier riots a number of Muslim entrepreneurs gave non-Muslim, mainly Hindu, names to their establishments, so that these were not readily identified as Muslim. It was claimed that some eight months earlier, Sandesh had published an article in which it listed
many such establishments pointing out that despite their names these were Muslim
owned. The rioters however, also attacked establishments that had Muslim .
sleeping partners,. a fact not widely known. It would appear therefore, that the
mob leaders had access to government records from the sales tax/excise
departments and the like, not normally available to the average citizen.
Another fact that appears to indicate prior planning for a communal attack according to informants is the collection of liquefied petroleum gas [LPG] gas cylinders. It is claimed that for some two weeks before February.28th, LPG cylinders were in short supply in Ahmedabad, and middle class consumers had to book them and stay in queue. But the rioters who took over Ahmedabad from February 28th were armed with thousands of LPG
gas cylinders, obviously collected in advance, which they used to blow up Muslim
commercial establishments and residences in the days that followed. These LPG
cylinders are bulky and heavy metal cylinders that can only be transported by
medium or heavy vehicles. The fact that such vehicles [including tempos and
trucks], were available along with the much sought after LPG cylinders appears
to indicate prior planning of some weeks, not to speak of days.
Taken together, all the available evidence including media reports, the reports of informants, eyewitnesses and others, appears to indicate a carefully planned attack over time on Muslim properties and persons throughout the State, beginning with Ahmedabad, with State connivance. The attack, it would appear, was planned well before February 27th. The ghastly events of Godhra appear to have merely provided the trigger for an anti-Muslim pogrom prepared well in advance. In that sense, the tragedy in Godhra is merely a coincidence. The premeditated and focussed attack on Gujarati Muslims was already planned, awaiting a trigger or pretext. The unexpected carnage in Godhra on February 27th unfortunately, provided that convenient
trigger.
Section 3.
State Complicity? Penetration of the Gujarat
State
The BJP, RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal
and associated organisations had allegedly penetrated State institutions and
organisations during the BJP rule in Gujarat. For example, in the Home Guards,
it is claimed that there was widespread recruitment of Sangh Parivar activists
and sympathisers, in the thousands. Promotions, postings and transfers in all
government institutions or those influenced by it, favoured Sangh activists and
sympathisers, and conversely punished those officers or ranks who were neutral
and secular. In the police, for example, postings and transfers up to the rank
of Deputy Superintendent of Police are decided upon by the Director General of
Police [DGP]. But in Gujarat, these postings\transfers are decided upon by the
local Sangh leadership, including MLAs, who communicate their recommendations
that are then implemented by the bureaucracy on the instructions of the
concerned Minister. The DGP has hardly any role. At the higher level of posts of
Superintendent of Police and above, powers are concentrated at the Ministerial
level. In the police, as probably in
other services, there is apparently an informal three-fold classification by the
Sangh Parivar of government servants. The first category are sympathisers or
members, the second are of those considered neutral or harmless, while the third
are of those considered hostile. This classification governs rewards or
punishments in the service and all are aware of that. The mass transfers of
police officers in March 2002, including of officers who through their prompt
and decisive action had stopped and curbed communal violence, is the most recent
example of punishment for doing one. s Constitutional duty. [See Box 10, and
below]. When asked about this by a critical media, Chief Minister Modi
euphemistically referred to these transfers as "promotions."
Conversely,
officers who apparently serve the ruling party. s interests are rewarded, and act accordingly. Assistant Commissioner of Police P.N. Barot was entrusted on March 8th with investigating two of Ahmedabad. s
bloodiest massacres, which fell outside his earlier zone of responsibility. He
declared that the genesis of the Gulbarg Society massacre where 42 people
including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri were killed was due to Jafri firing
"with a weapon and injured 13 persons, which provoked the mob." Similarly, the
massacre in Naroda-Patia was because "First, a Hindu boy, Ranjitsinh Chouhan,
was stabbed to death by Muslims. Then they killed three others by crushing them
under a Matador van. This infuriated the Hindus, leading to the massacre." Barot
was also critical of the fact that eleven people had been named in the FIR in
the Gulbarg Society case, and five others in the Naroda-Patia carnage, the most
prominent among the accused being Bajrang Dal activist Babu Bajrangi, who has a
long criminal record. "How could the police have identified 5-6 people in a mob
of a thousand?" he complained, echoing VHP General Secretary Jaydeep Patel who
accused the police of "falsely" implicating his men. Thus Barot not only
prejudges issues but also criticises his own colleagues, clearly indicating the
likely result of his investigations.
The RSS and VHP also control key
functionaries in the State. Chief Minister Modi is an RSS pracharak. Minister of
State for Home Zadaphia is a VHP activist. The Governor of Gujarat, who has not
seen fit to send a report on what is happening in the State to the Centre, S.S.
Bhandari is also an RSS leader. Such examples can be multiplied, but these will
suffice to indicate the penetration of the state apparatus and government
machinery by the Sangh Parivar. All governments are political, but the
penetration by the RSS, a shadowy and publicly unaccountable organisation, is a
specific phenomenon that requires careful and painstaking investigation, which
is however, outside the scope of this report.
As a consequence, the Gujarat government functioned not as a Constitutionally bound, non-partisan and independent body, but one controlled by, and answerable to the Sangh Parivar. The role and functioning of the Gujarat
government, therefore, is directly determined by its penetration by the Sangh
Parivar including its most extremist elements the VHP and Bajrang Dal. This fact
underlies the conduct of the Gujarat government before, during and after, the
peak period of communal violence in the State during February-March 2002.
Erosion of
the Bureaucracy and the Governmental System
The politicisation of the
governmental machinery especially the bureaucracy led inevitably to the erosion
of the functions and powers of the government machinery. As in the case of
police deployment, decision-making powers were illegitimately transferred from
police officials to the Sangh Parivar thereby eroding the powers, neutrality and
accountability of the government machinery. A very substantial number of
officers and staff instead of being responsible to their direct superiors and
governed by service rules, traditions and precedents, became politicised and
partisan, answerable to the Sangh Parivar. This process also undercuts the
system of checks and balances crucial to the functioning of the governmental
machinery. Checks on officers like their superiors, supervisory departments,
service codes, public scrutiny including that by the elected Assembly all get
get displaced by the unaccountable and unconstitutional control by the Sangh
Parivar. This erosion of the governmental
machinery adversely affected its efficiency. Functionaries instead of
concentrating on their official functions were unduly concerned of the impact of
their actions, or inaction, on the Sangh leadership. Since crucial personnel
matters like promotions, postings, transfers and awards depended not so much on
meritorious performance but partisan appreciation, the qualitative functioning
of the government apparatus was negatively affected. This factor had a major
impact on the functioning of the government machinery during this crisis, and
its inadequacies and failures.
State
Government Complicity? Failure in Godhra
The NHRC has pointed out the "serious failure of intelligence and action by the State Government [that] marked the events leading to the Godhra tragedy and the subsequent deaths and destruction that occurred." In Section 1 above, we have seen how reports of communally motivated misbehaviour in the Sabarmati Express had been reported in the media as early as February 25th e.g. in the Jan Morcha [Faizabad]. Given Gujarat. s communal
history and, in particular, the volatility of Godhra, this alone should have led
the administration to take precautionary measures including the deployment of
sufficient police forces on the train, and at the railway stations including
Godhra. In any event, the government should have known about the returning kar
sewaks from Ayodhya, since the BJP currently rules in both the Gujarat and UP
governments. In view of the sensitivity of the Ayodhya issue, there should have
been much more police bandobast, which if it had been in place would have
ensured that the tragedy did not occur. According to our reconstruction of
events, the trouble started at the station itself where stone throwing took
place. By all accounts there was a clash. This should have alerted the police
forces including the GRF, who knowing the character of Godhra and the volatility
of Signal Faliya, should have taken preventive action immediately. Further,
Cabin A where the train stopped for the second and final time, is less than a
kilometre away and the whole area is clearly visible. A crowd gathering there
could easily be observed and could only have meant trouble. The police could,
and should, have been there in a matter of minutes.
In case the official version, that
the tragedy was premeditated and ISI-inspired is given credence, then the
intelligence lapse is much more serious. How could such a premeditated plot have
escaped the notice of the intelligence agencies? If the fire bombs, petrol and
weapons were collected and stored over time and other preparations made over a
period, why was this not detected, particularly when tensions were known to be
high over the VHP programme in Ayodhya?
Under any construction of the
events, there have been very serious lapses by the administration and police.
There is one aspect of the formal procedures of intelligence gathering that goes
some way to explain the intelligence lapses. Both State and Central intelligence
agencies have as a matter of routine maintained regular surveillance of certain
organizations deemed to require such watching in the name of internal security.
These have included certain fundamentalist religious organizations. On the
watch-list are also certain extremist cults or political groupings deemed to
belong to the far right (e.g. Anand Margis) or far left (e.g. certain Naxalite
groups). However, the rise to power of the Sangh (through the BJP) at the Centre
and in Gujarat has meant that as far as central intelligence agencies and those
of Gujarat state are concerned, regular surveillance of the activities of the
RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal though prevalent in the past would now appear to have been
dropped. This could be one major reason why no tabs were kept, as they should
have been, on the activities of the kar sevaks on the Sabarmati Express.
The Post-Godhra events & the February 28th VHP
Bandh
The government. s decision to
swiftly transfer the bodies of the Godhra victims to Ahmedabad and elsewhere and
to allow public funerals was incendiary. The ghastly condition of the charred
bodies and remains was bound to cause public grief, revulsion and anger. In a
communally polarised State like Gujarat, the outbreak of communal mobilisation
and violence as a result of this should have been easily anticipated. Large
crowds were allowed to collect to receive the bodies at Ahmedabad railway
station and then to take them in a public procession. Even on the journey from
Godhra to Ahmedabad which passed through Vadodara, there were press reports of
at least two stabbings at the Vadodara railway station itself.
This
act was compounded by the government. s decision to allow the February 28th Bandh. At a time when communal passions were
aroused by the Godhra incidents and the funerals of the victims, a bandh was
certainly going to provoke violence. Not only did the government not dissuade
the VHP from calling the bandh, it instead went ahead and joined it. The
political leadership. s advice to the officers not to do anything during the
bandh that would hurt "Hindu sentiments" was a transparent attempt to ensure
that the bandh supporters were subjected to minimum administrative and police
restraint. Since it was clear that an
immediate post-Godhra bandh could only lead to communal violence, the Chief
Minister should have forced the VHP to withdraw the bandh, failing which he
should have suppressed it by deploying the entire might of the State and
requisitioning extra forces from outside. He clearly failed to do so, and
instead did the very opposite. By doing this the VHP and Gujarat government, in
effect, prepared the grounds for the riots.
Police
Partisanship
The NHRC notes that the
communal marauders were widely reported to have been "singling out certain homes
and properties for death and destruction in certain districts. sometimes within
view of police stations and personnel& " Reportedly in many cases, including
the massacres in Gulbarg society in which former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was
brutally slain, and in Naroda-Patia where more than 80 people died [unofficial
figures are much higher], the police have been accused of having been partisan
and anti-Muslim. No satisfactory explanation has been given for the inordinate
police delay in intervening in Gulbarg society, despite Jafri. s incessant
requests for help. Some observers say that Jafri. s spirited criticism of Chief
Minister Modi during the latter. s campaign in the Rajkot Assembly by-election,
was a factor in the police. s persistent lack of response. [See Box 2]. In
Naroda-Patia, according to survivors, the State Reserve Police [SRP] not only
refused the fleeing Muslims shelter, but tear-gassed them, forcing them towards
the waiting mobs. In case after case, Muslim victims claimed the police used
force against them, including firing, thereby providing cover and support to the
rampaging mobs. A number of victims told us that but for the police
partisanship, the toll in the Gujarat carnage would have been much lower.
This partisanship was much greater at the lower levels, where there appears to have been substantial communalization of the police force. There are widespread reports of the lower echelons of the police being especially partisan and hostile. But efforts to get the senior officials to remedy this parlous state of affairs seem to have failed. This situation continues to this day. On April 3rd, The Asian Age crime
reporter in Ahmedabad Ms. Sonal Kellogg, along with the reporter of a
Surat-based daily, was beaten up by the police in the Mariam Bibi Ni Chawli area
in Gomtipur. When she complained to the Deputy Commissioner of Police [Zone V]
R.J. Savani, whom she knew quite well, all he said was that "it might have been
a mistake." When she protested to the Police Commissioner P.C. Pande at his
office, he was dismissive; "Don. t bother me& I don. t have time& file a
complaint if you want." As the journalist sums up, "If policemen can be so
brutal towards journalists on duty, their behaviour with ordinary citizens could
be so much more atrocious. It is a pity that the police in Gujarat is either a
mute spectator or it harasses and tortures innocent people."
Senior police officials have indicated that their hands
were tied, implying that this was done by top politicians. But this does not
absolve the top police brass in Gujarat for failing to do their duties. The
maintenance of law and order is the direct responsibility of the police force.
Regardless of what political pressures may or may not be put upon them, there
exists a structure of rules and powers that empowers the police to ignore such
political pressures, and to ensure that law and order is maintained. This can be
done through a variety of measures including identification of likely communal hotspots, preventive arrests and
detentions on a mass scale in curfew and other areas, back-up preparations, etc.
What is more, despite a degree of communalization of the police at lower levels,
as long as the top hierarchy of the police make it clear that the police must
and will do its duty of ensuring peace, such communal prejudices are invariably
kept firmly in check and easily subordinated to the acceptance of the existing
chain of command and operation. It is when the top officials do not assert
themselves that wrong signals go down the line. In the case of Ahmedabad on
Feb.27th
there were virtually no preventive arrests by police stations in communally
sensitive areas. [See Box 11].
That is why instances of police
partisanship and ineptitude were not all pervasive and there are many creditable
examples of IAS and IPS officers fulfilling their responsibilities courageously
and effectively in Gujarat during this period. The NHRC cites the Gujarat
government. s Report to it noting "that many instances were recorded in the
Report of prompt and courageous action by District Collectors, Commissioners and
Superintendents of Police and other officers to control the violence& " But
the NHRC also points out that "the Report itself reveals that while some
communally-prone districts succeeded in controlling the violence, other
districts. sometimes less prone to such violence succumbed to it." Thus where
decisive and capable officers intervened, the communal holocaust could be
averted. The fact it was not in the capital Ahmedabad, was not due to lack of
force but politically-motivated ineptitude. It should be noted that the Police
Commissioner in Ahmedabad commanded a total of 10,000 men including 3,000 armed
men, along with 16 companies of SRP. Yet mobs of up to 5,000 and more men were
allowed to run amuck, loot, rape, beat, murder while the police stood by, when
it did not actually abet the mobs. As one senior police officer told us, the
problem was "not lack of force, but lack of will."
This lack of political will has
also affected investigation. Victims claim that for the most part, the police
are not registering FIRs. When they do they avoid writing specific names of
alleged wrong doers thereby defeating the purpose at the very outset. Further,
they cite lesser offenses, for example, writing the charge of rioting instead of
murder. As the instance of ACP Barot cited above shows, the investigating
officers are often biased to begin with. The NHRC has clearly noted this and
related factors: "numerous allegations have been made both in the media and to
the team of the Commission& that FIRs& were being distorted or poorly
recorded, and that senior political personalities were seeking to . influence.
the working of police stations by their presence within them, the Commission is
constrained to observe that there is a widespread lack of faith in the integrity
of the investigating process and the ability of those conducting
investigations."
Role of
the Sangh Parivar
The primary responsibility for
the communal conflagration rests with the Sangh Parivar. It provided the
ideological, political and administrative leadership and backbone for the tragic
events in Gujarat. In Godhra, but for the provocation by the VHP kar sewaks, the
tragic events that triggered off the State-wide holocaust would not have
occurred, though that does not justify the mob. s murderous response. The Sangh
Parivar sought to capitalise publicly in regard to the funerals of the Godhra
dead in ways that further inflamed communal passions. The VHP and other Hindutva
groups circulated inflammatory pamphlets thereby helping to create the communal
polarisation necessary for the ensuing mobilisation and mayhem. [See Box 5 and
Appendix 2]. These pamphlets and other propaganda methods were unlawful and
actionable. But to date, since cadres and leaders of the VHP and Bajrang Dal are
also BJP leaders and legislators, no action has been taken despite extensive
media coverage and criticism. No other organisation indulging in such disruptive
and illegal ideological propaganda would have been given such latitude, much
less support.
Sangh Parivar leaders were
repeatedly identified by victims and other informants as instigating and leading
the marauding mobs. This is why in the few instances where individual names have
been recorded in the FIRs, these include Sangh Parivar activists. The media has
reported that for crucial hours on February 28th
from around Noon to 4.30 PM, two Ministers, Health Minister Ashok Bhatt and
Urban Development Minister I.K. Jadeja were present in the Ahmedabad City and
Gandhinagar State Police Control Rooms, respectively. Minister Bhatt was
reportedly present when former MP Jafri called for help. Most importantly,
though the situation was clearly out of control, the State government delayed in
calling in the Army. Even after the Army was called in on February 28th night, its deployment was delayed till the next
afternoon. Even then, it is reported, it received insufficient police support
and intelligence. The fact that a sympathetic Central government deemed it fit
to send Defence Minister George Fernandes to oversee the army deployment, is a
measure of their lack of faith in the State. s leadership to adequately utilise
the Army.
The bias of the Sangh Parivar is
highlighted by the fact that it wanted to compensate the victims of the Godhra
violence with Rs. 2 lakhs, in contrast to the Rs. 1 lakh offered to victims in
the post-Godhra violence. This was reversed only after representatives of the
families bereaved by the violence in Godhra agreed to equality of compensation
at Rs. 1 lakh. This, it has been reported, was made possible because of private
assurances of separate financial help by the VHP to the said families. The NHRC
commenting on the initially proposed discriminatory compensation, strongly noted
that "the issue raised impinged seriously on the provisions of the Constitution
contained in Articles 14 and 15, dealing respectively with equality before the
law and equal protection of the laws within the territory of India, and the
prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place
of birth." The imposition of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance [POTO] only
against the accused in the Godhra incident also smacked of bias. Both decisions
were only reversed after considerable public outcry, and Central Government
intervention.
Biases are also indicated by the
fact, which the NHRC has noted, that prior to its visit no senior political
leaders nor high level officers had visited many Muslim refugee camps. Work has
started in some camps like Shah-e-Alam only when it became known that the Prime
Minister would be visiting it. The procedure for estimating and providing
compensation also started around that time. When it became known that the Prime
Minister would not be visiting some camps, work there, according to media
reports, was quickly abandoned. Notwithstanding the Prime Minister. s
instructions and sustained Opposition demands, no rehabilitation work has
started though more than a month has lapsed since tens of thousands of Muslims
entered dozens of refugee camps. Given the scale of the devastation and the
large numbers of people involved, rehabilitation work, to be effective, should
have commenced much earlier.
The most important role of the
Sangh Parivar has been in suborning the administration to carry out its
ideological and political agenda. The control of the Gujarat government was
crucial for the Hindutva forces. Without it they could not have planned,
instigated, mobilised, and implemented the communal pogrom, and then protected
its activists who participated in these activities from legal and societal
retribution. It is noteworthy that at no stage of the early communal violence
did Chief Minister Modi make sustained public appeals to Hindu groups to eschew
violence and live in amity with their Muslim neighbours.
The role of the BJP leadership in
the ruling NDA coalition in the Union government has been crucial. Despite
unprecedented violence, loss of life and property and colossal damage to the
State. s economy, the BJP central leadership has gone out of its way to defend
the Modi government. Though Home Minister Advani. s Gandhinagar constituency
includes some of the worst affected areas, he paid a brief visit some days after
the violence erupted. The Prime Minister. s own visit was more than a month
after the violence started, and that to just for a day. In a tragedy of such
dimensions more visible concern is normally displayed and expected. It is
noteworthy, that in States marked by much less violence and disturbance, like in
Manipur last year after the extension of the Naga cease-fire to the Manipur hill
districts, the Centre imposed President. s Rule under Article 356. This
sustained and unrelenting support has encouraged and enabled the Modi government
to persist with its communal and partisan policies. Additionally, both these
governments have failed to fulfill Constitutional requirements.
Two Gujarat High Court judges, one
a serving judge Justice M. H. Kadri and another a retired judge and former
Chairman, MRTP Commission, Justice A.N. Divecha, had to leave their own homes on
28th February, on the advice of the Chief
Justice of the High Court, because adequate police protection was not available.
Justice A.P. Ravani, former Chief Justice, Rajasthan High Court, in his
deposition to the NHRC of 21st March 2002, has
stated that he advised Justice Kadri that for him "to shift from his official
residence for the reason that he is not given full protection would amount to
[an] insult to the independence of the judiciary and also an insult to the
secular philosophy of the Constitution." [See Box 7, and Appendix 3]. The NHRC
in its comment on this event noted that the "pervasive sense of insecurity
prevailing in the State& extended to all segments of society, including to
two Judges of the High Court of Gujarat, one sitting and the other retired who
were compelled to leave their homes because of the vitiated atmosphere. There
could be no clearer evidence of the failure to control the situation."
From all these instances it would
appear that there has been a Constitutional breakdown of law and order in
Gujarat attracting Article 355, and obligating the use of Article 356. This is
indicated by the NHRC when it declared that the State. s responsibility should
be gauged by "the failure to protect the life, liberty, equality and dignity of
the people of Gujarat."
Conclusions
1] The events in Gujarat do not
constitute a communal riot. Barring the tragic attack at Godhra on February
27th which was a communal riot, the bulk of the
violence that followed was state-backed and one-sided violence against Muslims
tantamount to a deliberate pogrom.
2] For the first time since 1969,
the communal violence in Gujarat has assumed a comprehensive State-wide
dimension. But unlike 1969, several new areas hitherto unaffected by communal
tension (both in cities and in the state as a whole), including large swathes of
the rural areas, have been affected by communal tension marked by attacks by the
largely tribal people, often from neighbouring villages, on the Muslim minority.
3] The casualties have been very
high. While the official estimate of deaths is below 800, unofficial estimates
start at 2,000 and go even higher. A major reason for this underestimation is
that the deaths in rural areas have not all been reported as entire settlements
have been wiped out, with no one left to report the losses to the police, which,
as shown above, has generally been reluctant to file FIRs even in the urban and
semi-urban areas. In view of the Administration. s attempt to minimize the
violence claiming that it was under control within 72 hours, it would be
interested in understating the actual extent of casualties.
4] Certain crucial aspects of the
carrying out of the pogrom required systematic planning well in advance of the
Godhra incident. The lists the rioters possessed and used must have been
compiled over time. The targeting of Muslim homes, institutions, establishments
and shrines was very precise and accurate. Even when there was only one Muslim
shop or home in a congested Hindu-dominated area, it was attacked, ransacked and
burnt. Businesses that had Hindu or non-Muslim names, were identified and
targeted along with others in which Muslims were minority or sleeping partners.
The mobs were huge, at times several thousand strong. They were brought in buses
and trucks. Vehicles were also used to ferry thousands of LPG gas cylinders,
which in turn were widely used as explosives to destroy property. There must
have been official connivance to release such large quantities of LPG gas
cylinders. In the weeks before the outbreak Ahmedabad was experiencing a widely
reported shortage of such cylinders. Vehicles were also used to transport looted
goods. The leaders of the mobs allegedly had mobile phones as well as water
bottles, and regularly communicated with others, presumably including their
political bosses.
5] It is a measure of the virtual
breakdown of large areas of police functioning that intelligence reports of this
Hindutva planning were either not compiled or ignored by higher ups. These types
of preparations should not have gone unnoticed since, at the very least,
hundreds must have been involved. Further, this mass movement of men, materials
and vehicles could easily have been curbed by decisive police action, which
would have led to a dramatic fall in casualties, rape and destruction of
property. Virtually no preventive arrests were made further emboldening the
mobs. Later arrests reportedly had a disproportionate number of Muslims. In
sharp contrast, in places like Kacchch, Surat, Amreli, etc., where tough,
decisive and extensive action was taken by the administration and police, the
situation was kept under control. This would indicate that the breakdown of law
and order in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and elsewhere was a consequence of the
politicisation of the administration and police.
6] The suborning of large sections
of the administration and police to permit, and in numerous cases to facilitate,
the Hindutva agenda, was critical for the spread, intensity and persistence of
the communal violence. As was the blind eye turned to the provocative propaganda
by sections of the Gujarati media, Sangh Parivar affiliates notably the VHP, and
at times by State functionaries themselves. The government statements
immediately after Godhra virtually accusing the Ghanchis of Singal Faliya of
acting as Pakistani ISI agents, and their decision to publicise the transporting
of the charred bodies to Ahmedabad for public funeral, can only be seen as a
cynical attempt to foment communal tension and hysteria essential for the
attacks that inevitably followed. This was compounded by the State government. s
sanction and support for the VHP bandh and their signal to the bureaucracy and
police to minimise their intervention. Since then the government has
systematically tried to cover up, minimise, and even justify, the extent of
violence, while protecting the guilty and those guilty of dereliction of duty.
This is why the events of February-March 2002 can only be called a
state-sponsored pogrom.
7] Instead of intervening and
taking decisive action against the State government, the Central government has
chosen to minimize the seriousness of what has happened, with senior Central
government leaders early on alleging without proof, ISI involvement in Godhra.
Without this sustained and consistent support, the Modi government could not
have continued in power or have been emboldened to continue with its bloody,
anti-Constitutional and anti-national activities. Since the defence of the
Constitutional order is its primary duty, the Union government itself has failed
to fulfill its primary duties, and uphold its oath of office.
8] What has happened in Gujarat is
not only a gruesome tragedy for that State, or a national tragedy as the Prime
Minister keeps saying. It is much more than that. If those guilty, whether for
the Godhra killings or for the carrying out and covering up of the
state-sponsored pogrom are allowed to go unpunished, it will have severe
consequences for the continuation of India as a secular, multi-cultural
democracy. If minorities along with all those who disagree with Hindutva
fanatics, (together the large majority of the people of India), can be attacked
in this manner then a secular India cannot survive.
Recommendations
1] In view of the Constitutional
breakdown in Gujarat, [patent in the concerted and systematic challenge mounted
to the secular foundation of the polity; in the failure to protect the life
liberty and safety of a sitting High Court judge belonging to the minority
community; in the monumental breakdown of law and order, in the very heart of
the state capital and elsewhere; and in the large scale looting, arson and
killing to which the monority community was allowed to be subjugated
systematically], under the obligations enjoined on it under Article 355, the
Union government should impose President. s Rule under Article 356.
2] During President. s Rule,
stringent and extensive measures must be undertaken to depoliticise and
decommunalise the bureaucracy and police at all levels. The impartial and
efficient functioning of the Gujarat administration and police must be restored
in accordance with the provisions and injunctions of the Constitution.
3] The K.G. Shah Commission of
Inquiry should be replaced by a Commission of Inquiry headed by a sitting
Supreme Court judge and including one or more sitting High Court judges, with
more extensive terms of reference similar to that of the earlier Justice
Jagmohan Reddy Inquiry Commission.
4] Special courts should be set up
to try the guilty, including leading politicians. CBI inquiries be instituted
against senior police officers and bureaucrats suspected of dereliction of duty.
5] Recommendations of the National
Police Commission [1979-81] to establish the autonomy of the police and free it
from undue political control should be accepted and implemented immediately.
6] Immediate measures for relief
and rehabilitation. Peace committees must be set up in all localities, including
unaffected ones. These committees should be involved in creating a conducive
atmosphere for the victims to return home, once their residences are
reconstructed. Adequate compensation should be given for the reconstruction of
commercial and industrial establishments. The necessary rules may be revised,
and the Centre can give the necessary financial support. When this is not
possible, peace committees in the area of relocation should be involved. All
efforts must be made to prevent further ghettoisation of the Muslim community.
7] In view of the trauma, victims
especially women and children have suffered, free medical, including
psychiatric, care should be provided. As there has apparently been widespread
rape, including of girl children, special counselling by medical personnel as
well as by social workers should be organised.
8] The role of sections of the
media, particularly the Gujarati language press, should be investigated by the
Press Council, and deterrent and remedial action be taken.
Section 1
Box 1: A History of Communal Riots
in Gujarat
After independence, Gujarat
witnessed its first major communal riot involving large-scale massacres, arson
and looting in 1969. The riots took a toll of over 1,000 lives and property
worth crores of Rupees was destroyed. During the years 1974 to 1980, other
issues preoccupied Gujarati society. The 1984 anti-reservation agitation also
took something of a communal turn as this was one way of reducing the
polarisation that was otherwise taking place between upper caste and lower caste
Hindus. During the nineties, the Ram Janmabhoomi issue began to occupy the
centre of the stage. L. K. Advani. s Rath Yatra in 1990 led to the highest
number of communal riots in the state. Communal passions were raised
particularly in those areas where Hindu-Muslim amity had prevailed in the past.
Violence also spread to rural areas.
Organised efforts were made in
civil society through informal channels, the print and visual media, public
lectures to provide new and more militant interpretations of Hinduism and to
promote a feeling among Hindus that as a majority community they were being
treated unjustly through . appeasement. of Muslims by various . vested
interests. . The view that Muslims were conservative, anti-national,
fundamentalist and pro-Pakistan was systematically promoted. In some cases
Hindus were even exhorted to take up arms to defend their interests.
The BJP came to power in Gujarat
in the mid-nineties. Steady state support was extended to the activities of
organisations such as the RSS, VHP, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and so on. School
curricula were modified to be in tune with the Hindutva ideology. Anti-Christian
propaganda and violence were initiated. Efforts were made to penetrate the
tribal belt where the influence of the BJP was limited. Trishuls, swords and
other weapons were distributed at ceremonial religious functions. Training
campaigns were carried out to spread ideological messages.
Between 1987 and 1991, an
estimated 106 major riots took place in Gujarat. Political rivalry and conflicts
during elections were responsible for triggering around 40 percent of these
riots. Tensions related to . religious processions. triggered another
approximately 22 percent of all riots. Other triggers were personal
ill-feelings, cricket matches, sudden quarrels, love affairs between Hindu girls
and Muslim boys and vice versa, and so on. Persistent communal tensions have
contributed to the perpetuation of violence as a way of life and the emergence
of authoritarian elements in society, which seek to destroy civic order. The
mixing of politics with religion has played havoc in Gujarat. Communal riots
have often been engineered to overthrow inconvenient state governments.
Political confrontation and violence as a way of asserting one. s presence have
become established practices in the state. s democratic polity. The sheer
numerical strength and violence of organised mobs is sometimes used to supplant
normal legal processes. Political violence in combination with emotionally
charged religious fanaticism has sought to destroy the social fabric and to
divide the people.
Since 1969, police posts have
become almost a permanent feature of the city landscape in Ahmedabad. Many
politicians move about with armed guards and vehicles to safeguard their
security from perceived enemies. Politico-administrative institutions have been
unable to contain violence firmly, fairly and in accordance with the law. The
Justice Jaganmohan Commission Report of 1970 and the Justice Dave Commission
Report in 1990, have clearly stated that the country belongs to no single
community immutably different and separate from other sections of society. A
disturbing assessment of the current situation in Gujarat, which was widely
expressed to the members of this fact-finding mission, was that a large section
of Hindus in Gujarat have come to perceive some sort of a . social sanction.
behind the infliction of wanton violence against the minority Muslim community
in the state.
Section 2
Box 2 : Murder Most Foul: The
Death of Iqbal Ehsan Jafri and Family Members
Among those killed and injured by
marauding mobs in Ahmedabad from February 28th onwards were prominent Muslims as
well as poor Muslim families. Some were fortunate enough to be able to flee.
This was the case with retired Justice Akbar N. Divecha whose house was burnt
down. The Special IG of Police, A. I. Saiyed had to run for his life. The former
Congress MP, Iqbal Ehsan Jafri was burnt alive along with his family members
(barring his brave wife who managed to escape the wrath of the marauders). He
was living in the Gulbarg Society colony of Chamanpura area in the city of
Ahmedabad. Several other Muslim families in Gulbarg Society were similarly burnt
alive. By all accounts several thousands had gathered in a mob on February 28th
to carry out looting, arson, rape and killings.
Police officials, speaking
anonymously, confirmed that Jafri had made frantic telephone calls to the
Director General of police, the Police Commissioner, the Chief Secretary, the
Additional chief Secretary (Home) and others. Three mobile vans of the city
police were on hand around Jafri. s house but did not intervene. Our police
sources further confirmed that the MP resorted to firing in self-defence when he
totally failed in his attempts to get police assistance. At that point, the
maurauders broke into his house, and among other inhuman deeds, stripped and
raped his daughters and then burnt them alive along with their father. It was
only the Rapid Action Force (RAF) of the central government that belatedly
intervened when they arrived on the scene.
Box 3: Electoral Political
Calculations by the BJP?
The BJP last formed the state
government through its victory in assembly elections in 1998. It came to power
on the campaigning slogan of promising freedom from "Bhook, Bhey Aur
Brashtachar", or freedom from hunger, fear and corruption. Between 1998 and the
February 27, 2002, however, the BJP has suffered badly in elections at all
levels.
In the December 2000 elections to
6 municipal corporations, to 25 district panchayats and to the far more numerous
Taluka elections held simultaneously, the BJP lost heavily. It lost control in
almost all the district panchayat elections. It retained four of the six
municipalities but its two losses were in the most prestigious municipalities of
Ahmedabad, the capital and Rajkot where the RSS and the Sangh has had its
strongest foothold. The BJP had held Ahmedabad corporation for the last 15 years
and Rajkot for the last 25 years. The Congress party was the biggest beneficiary
of the BJP. s electoral reversals.
In September 2001 under the
previous BJP regime in the state headed by Keshubhai Patel, it lost to the
Congress in the two assembly elections held then. Narendra Modi was brought in
as chief minister of Gujarat to replace Patel shortly after that debacle, partly
to bring about a change in the BJP. s sinking electoral fortunes. However, in
the February 24, 2002 bye-elections held in three assembly seats (all held
previously by the BJP) the party lost two of them by heavy margins to the
Congress, and Modi himself was elected from the third Rajkot constituency by a
much reduced margin as compared to the previous poll. It was widely believed,
rightly or wrongly, that he could even have lost if the Congress had fielded a
stronger candidate.
The question naturally arises as
to whether there are any electoral-political considerations behind what
subsequently happened from February 28 onwards? This can only be speculated
upon. However, what is a fact is that the Gujarat state government and party
headed by Modi has, after the outbreak of prolonged communal violence in
Gujarat, wanted to hold assembly elections before the scheduled time of
February-March 2003. This is confirmed by all the major dailies of New Delhi and
elsewhere on March 28, 2002, which reported on Modi. s visit to Delhi to meet
the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The PM is reported to have told Modi
to forget about seeking to reschedule (bring forward) the assembly polls at this
juncture and to concentrate on restoring normalcy in the state first.
Although it is, of course, the
Election Commission that has final say on the precise timing of the next
assembly polls, the fact that Modi has sought to bring forward the dates of the
assembly elections in Gujarat clearly indicates that it is the belief of himself
and his party in the state that the BJP will benefit from the political fall-out
of the carnage that has taken place.
Box 4 : Translation of an Article
in Sandesh
[March 1, 2002, Page 16]
FROM AMONG THOSE ABDUCTED FROM
SABARMATI EXPRESS TWO DEAD BODIES OF HINDU GIRLS FOUND NEAR KALOL IN MUTILATED
STATE
Vadodara, Thursday: The details of
the information about the dead bodies of two girls abducted from the bogies,
during the attack on the Sabarmati express, yesterday, found in a mutilated and
terribly disfigured form, near a pond in Kalol, has added fuel to the already
volatile situation of tension, not only in Panchmahal, but in the whole State.
As part of a cruel inhuman act
that would make even a devil weep, the breasts of both the dead bodies had been
cut. Seeing the dead bodies one knows that the girls had been raped again and
again, perhaps many times. There is a speculation that during this act itself
the girls might have died.
The police, however, have kept
quiet and have not spoken about this sensitive event. On account of that,
various speculations during an already tense situation are like adding ghee to
the fire.
According to the talk heard during
the night one more dead body of a girl, also in a terribly mutilated form, had
been found. After having raped and mutilated, the body of the woman was set on
fire with petrol. Is there no limit to the lust?
Box 5: Translation of a VHP
Leaflet
[VHP leaflet, Jai Shri Ram]
Wake up! Arise! Think! Enforce!
Save the country! Save the
religion!
Economic boycott is the only
solution! The anti-national elements use the money earned from the Hindus to
destroy us!
They buy arms! They molest our
sisters and daughters! The way to break the backbone of these elements is: An
economic non-cooperation movement.
Let us resolve:
1. From now on I will not buy
anything from a Muslim shopkeeper!
2. I will not sell anything from
my shop to such elements!
3. Neither shall I use the hotels
of these anti-nationals, nor their garages!
4. I shall give my vehicles only
to Hindu garages! From a needle to gold, I shall not buy anything made by
Muslims, neither shall we sell them things made by us!
5. Boycott whole-heartedly films
in which Muslim hero-heroines act! Throw out films produced by these
anti-nationals!
6. Never work in offices of
Muslims! Do not hire them!
7. Do not let them buy offices in
our business premises, nor sell or rent out houses to them in our housing
societies, colonies or communities.
8. I shall certainly vote, but
only for him who will protect the Hindu nation.
9. I shall be alert to ensure that
our sisters-daughters do not fall into the . love-trap. of Muslim boys at
school-college-workplace.
10. I shall not receive any
education or training from a Muslim teacher.
Such strict economic boycott will
throttle these elements! It will break their backbone! Then it will be difficult
for them to live in any corner of this country. Friends, begin this economic
boycott from today! Then no Muslim will raise his head before us! Did you read
this leaflet? Then make ten photocopies of it, and distribute it to our
brothers. The curse of Hanumanji [be] on him who does not implement this, and
distribute it to others! The curse of Ramchandraji also be on him! Jai Shriram!
A true Hindu patriot!
Section 3
Box 6: Selected Quotes From the
Press
1. March 1, 2002 (Times of India,
Delhi Edition)
Chief Minister Narendra Modi
stated: "I. m absolutely satisfied with how the police and the government has
handled the backlash. I. m happy the violence has been largely contained."
Narendra Modi said that: "The five
crore people of Gujarat have shown remarkable restraint under grave
provocation."
On Ehsan Jafri. s murder, Narinder
Modi said: "Before Congress leader Jafri. s House was set ablaze, reports claim
that there was firing on the mob from inside his residence. (It is) preplanned
and the incident seems to be a terrorist activity."
2. March 2, 2002 (Times of India,
Delhi Edition)
On the violence after Godhra, Modi
stated: "Every Action has an equal and opposite reaction."
3. March 4, 2002 (Indian Express,
Ahmedabad Edition)
The Union Home Minister, Mr. L.K.
Advani when asked whether he favoured an inquiry into what happened after Godhra
said: "It. s up to the State Government to decide. But the inquiry in Godhra
cannot be related with any inquiry into the incidents later."
(Times of India, Delhi Edition)
Chief Minister Modi stated: "The
Government has decided that families of those killed in the Godhra attack will
be paid Rs.2 Lakh while relatives of those killed in the violence following
Godhra will get Rs. One Lakh per victim."
4. March 5, 2002 (Indian Express,
Ahmedabad Edition)
The BJP National President, Mr.
Jana Krishnamurthy said: "The post-Godhra violence, though strongly condemnable
is a result of revulsions after Godhra. You can. t count out human feelings."
5. March 6, 2002 (Indian Express,
Ahmedabad Edition)
Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of
Gujarat said: "I have brought peace to the state in 72 hours." The violence has
continued for over a month.
(Times of India, Delhi Edition)
On being asked about his
discriminatory treatment between the communities, Modi replied: "What
discrimination? You (media) are all out to pull my government down."
6. March 6, 2002 (Indian Express,
Ahmedabad Edition)
Modi referring to the post-Godhra
violence said: "What happened is secular violence which happens during communal
violence."
He further went on to call the
February 28 bandh of the VHP a "natural bandh", whatever that means.
7. March 14, 2002 (Indian Express,
Ahmedabad Edition)
Regarding the continuing violence
reported by the press, Modi declares: "There is a conspiracy going on to bring
disrepute to the good name of Gujarat."
8. March 15, 2002 (Indian Express,
Ahmedabad Edition)
Talking about the future electoral
impact of the communal carnage, an unnamed BJP hardliner reported to be close to
the Chief Minister said: "The party leadership can certainly translate this
Hindu backlash into votes, in case it decided to go for fresh Assembly elections
in May or June." [Reported in the Indian Express, Ahmedabad edition, page 5.]
9. March 18, 2002 (Hindustan
Times, Delhi Edition)
The RSS Resolution passed in their
all-India General Council meeting held in Bangalore declares the post-Godhra
violence to be "natural and spontaneous". The Resolution also says: "Let the
Muslims understand their real safety lies in the goodwill of the majority."
10. March 20, 2002 (Indian
Express, Ahmedabad Edition)
Justifying the use of the
Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) to arrest people after the Godhra
incident, although POTO was not used thereafter to arrest anyone suspected of
involvement in the post-Godhra killings and property destruction, the Gujarat
Minister of State for Home, Gordhan Zadaphia said: "In Godhra an outside agency
like the ISI was involved and it was a pure terrorist act. But what took place
in the State later was mob fury."
11. March 22, 2002 (Indian
Express, Ahmedabad Edition)
The Gujarat State Minister for
Civil Supplies, Bharat Barot calls for the dismantling of relief camps filled
with Muslim victims of the terrible carnage, so as dispel what he claims are
Hindu fears about their presence. Or as he puts it, "so that there is no further
communal disturbance". In short, the victims are themselves being blamed for
representing a communal danger.
12. March 25, 2002 (Times of
India, Delhi Edition)
In Rajkot when opening a party
office, Modi said: "the irresponsible statements being made by the Opposition in
the Lok Sabha are one of the reasons why the Gujarat violence is not abating."
He further said: "The Opposition is keen on keeping the fire burning in
Gujarat." Modi caused an uproar in Parliament when he stated that the riots in
the state would end when the Parliament session itself ended.
13. March 27, 2002 (Times of
India, Delhi Edition)
Modi when asked about the transfer
of senior police officers stated: "Senior police officers haven. t been
victimized by transfers. They have just been promoted." After meeting the Prime
minister he said: "There is no talk of change of leadership. Everyone is
satisfied."
14. April 2, 2002 (Asian Age,
Delhi Edition)
The VHP International General
Secretary, Praveen Togadia said: "What is happening in Gujarat is not communal
riots but people. s answer to Islamic Jihad."
15. April 5, 2002 (Economic Times,
Delhi Edition)
The Prime Minister, Atal Bihari
Vajpayee said: "I have full faith in Modi that he would follow the ideals of
Rajdharma." [Rajdharma means . ethics of rule. ].
Box 7: A Revealing Indictment
Ahmedabad is the capital of the
State of Gujarat. A democratically elected government is in place there. It is
headed by someone who was administered the oath of allegiance to the
Constitution of India and is sworn to uphold the rule of law without fear or
favour, and to protect the life and liberty of all citizens irrespective of
their religious affiliation. Under our Constitution, the Judiciary has a crucial
role to perform not only as dispenser of justice but also as guarantor of the
right to life and liberty. It follows that a special responsibility devolves on
the Executive at both the Centre and in the States to protect the life, liberty
and safety of the members of the Judiciary and to ensure the necessary working
conditions wherein they can discharge their Constitutional functions.
And yet, in Ahmedabad, on February
28/March 1, 2002, there was a complete abnegation of this responsibility by the
State government with regard to Justice Kadri (and his family), a Muslim sitting
judge of the Gujarat High Court. The written submission to the National Human
Rights Commission (NHRC) by the retired Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High
Court Judge, resident in Ahmedabad, Justice A. P. Ravani, when carefully read
for its revelations and inferences, constitutes a searing indictment of the
State government and Police for their unacceptable and . inexplicable. failure
to fulfill their Constitutional responsibilities to protect the Judiciary. [See
Appendix 3]
On 28th February, arson was taking
place in front of the High Court building despite the presence of a police
company, which is always deployed in the High Court premises, and with the Sola
Police Station only half a kilometre away. The law and order situation had
deteriorated to such an extent that the Judges had to take the unprecedented
step of leaving the Court abruptly, although in the past the Courts have
continued to function on working days even in riot conditions elsewhere. While
the police could and did escort the Judges out of the Court, they did not
protect the Court and its continued functioning! [Though the provision of a
police escort is not specifically mentioned in the deposition, this was
confirmed in a personal communication with Justice Ravani.]
The situation was very tense near
Justice Kadri. s bungalow (his official residence), where incidents of looting
and arson were taking place. Despite all efforts by the Chief Justice
Dharmadhikari (who in official protocol ranks second only to the Chief Minister)
to ensure police protection for Justice Kadri, he and other judges of the High
Court, given the failure of such efforts, urged Judge Kadri to move himself and
his family to Justice Vaghela. s residence for the night. The ordeal did not end
there. The Vastrapur area (where the Chief Justice. s residence is located, as
well as the bungalows of other judges, and where a bungalow was being readied
for Mr Kadri to move in on the afternoon of March 1) was, in the developing
circumstances, not at all safe for those belonging to the minority Muslim
community. Despite the presence of a large police force, including members of
the State Reserve Police (SRP) in the area, various incidents of looting and
arson had taken place including the burning of a Muslim owned restaurant,
"Tasty", in front of the block where the Chief Justice. s residence is located.
[Personal communication by Justice Ravani]
Extraordinarily, even officials
belonging to Military Intelligence told Justice Kadri that he should not rely on
the local police for his safety and that he should consider moving to the
military guesthouse in the cantonment area where they could ensure his safety!
Meanwhile, news came through that the house of Justice A. Divecha, a retired
High Court Judge and a former Chairman, MRTP Commission, who happened to be a
Muslim, was ransacked and burnt by a mob forcing him to leave it. The
circumstances forced Justice Kadri to move to his sister-in-law. s flat in
Rivera Apartment, near Tagore Hall, located in a predominantly Muslim area.
The experience of Justice Kadri
and his family raises fundamental questions. How was it possible for looting and
arson to take place in the very area where senior judges lived and where there
was more than adequate presence of the police? It is a well-established fact
(and an accepted principle of police peace-keeping) that a couple of armed
policemen can easily disperse a mob of a thousand. Here there were more than
enough armed policemen to cope with mobs in the several thousands, yet not only
the Judges themselves feared for the lives of fellow Muslims judges, but
military intelligence also confirmed the validity of their fears! How is it that
neither the High Court itself nor the residences of Muslim judges, active or
retired, could be protected? Why is it that the State government and police did
not fulfill their Constitutional responsibilities to protect the Judiciary, its
functioning, its safety, and thereby its substantive independence? For two full
days, the Constitution of the Republic of India was suspended in the heart of
the capital city of Gujarat, even for the members of the Highest Judiciary in
the State. The rule of law vanished and only the military arm of the Republic
was prepared and able to guarantee life, liberty and safety of a high court
judge, and that too only within the cantonment area! Given the events detailed
in this case how is it possible to avoid the conclusion that there was State and
Police complicity with respect to the violence that was taking place and
directed against Muslims, including senior Muslim Judges?
Box 8: The Terms of Reference of
the K.G. Shah Commission of Enquiry
On March 6 2002, the Government of
Gujarat announced the setting up of a one-man commission headed by retired
Justice K.G. Shah to look into the recent communal violence in Gujarat. The
terms of reference of this commission of enquiry are compared below with those
of the Justice Jaganmohan Reddy commission of enquiry into the Ahmedabad riots
of 1969 and those of the Justice Srikrishna commission of enquiry into the
Mumbai riots of 1992.
Shah Commission: Terms of
Reference (2002)
To ascertain
The facts, circumstances and the
course of events of the incidents that led to setting on fire of some coaches of
the Sabarmati Express train on February 27, 2002 near Godhra railway station.
The facts, circumstances and
course of events of the subsequent incidents of violence in the State in the
aftermath of the Godhra incident.
The adequacy of administrative
measures taken to prevent and deal with the disturbances in Godhra and
subsequent disturbances in the State.
To ascertain as to whether the
incident at Godhra was pre-planned and whether information was available with
the agencies, which could have been used to prevent the incident.
To recommend suitable measures to
prevent recurrence of such incidents in future.
Jaganmohan Reddy Commission: Terms
of Reference (1969)
To ascertain
The causes and course of the
communal disturbances, which took, place at Ahmedabad and generally in other
parts of the state of Gujarat on and after 18th September 1969.
The adequacy of the administrative
measures taken to prevent and deal with the said disturbances.
Measures, which may be adopted to
prevent recurrence of such disturbances.
Other matters relating to the
communal disturbances in the state as may be germane to the above.
Srikrishna Commission: Terms of
Reference (1992)
To ascertain
The circumstances, events and
immediate causes of the incidents which occurred in Bombay Police
Commissionerate area in December 1992 on or after the 6th December 1992 and
again in January 1993 on or after the 6th January 1993.
Whether any individual or group of
individuals or any other organisation, were responsible for such events and
circumstances.
The adequacy, or otherwise, of the
precautionary and preventive measures, taken by the police preceding the
aforesaid incidence.
Whether the steps taken by the
police in controlling the riots were adequate and proper and whether the police
firing resulting in deaths was justified or not.
The measures, long and short term,
which are required to be taken by the administration to avoid recurrence of such
incidents, to secure communal harmony and also to suggest improvements in law
and order machinery.
The circumstances and the
immediate cause of the incidents commonly referred to as the serial bomb-blasts
of the 12th March 1993, which occurred in the Bombay police commissionerate
area.
Whether these last incidents had
any common link with incidents mentioned at the first point above.
Whether all these incidents were
part of a common design.
Comments
First, it is noteworthy that the
Justice Shah Commission is a single man commission unlike the Jaganmohan Reddy
commission, which was a three-man commission with two of its members from the
minority community. Further, Justice Shah is a retired judge in poor health.
Given the gravity of the recent incidents of communal violence in Gujarat, it is
obvious that there should be a three member Commission led by a serving judge of
the Supreme Court of India with two of its members from the minority community.
Since the Narendra Modi Government and its agencies have been widely perceived
to have colluded with the massive violation of human rights of the minority
community in the recent communal riots in Gujarat, it is necessary for the
Central Government to set up the Commission and to include the role of the State
Government in the riots as part of the terms of reference of the Commission of
Enquiry.
Second, the terms of reference
(TOR) of the Shah Commission attaches conspicuously less importance to the
serious incidents in Ahmedabad and elsewhere as compared to its concern over
what happened in Godhra. Third, while the element of pre-planning, if any,
behind the Godhra incidents is to be looked into, the need to adopt a similar
approach in regard to the incidents in Ahmedabad and elsewhere, is conspicuously
ignored. This is in marked contrast to the TOR of the Srikrishna commission of
enquiry which was specifically mandated to ascertain whether "any individual or
group of individuals or any other organisation, were responsible" for the
incidents. Finally, the issue of setting out restitution, compensation,
rehabilitation and guarantees of non-repetition as benchmarks should be included
in the terms of reference.
Thus, the Shah commission of
enquiry into the recent incidents of communal violence in Gujarat, as it stands,
fails to inspire confidence and should be rejected.
Box 9: Interview with a RSS
Baudhik Pracharak
The 56 years old RSS Baudhik
pracharak stated that he had seen Hindu-Muslim riots since childhood. He was
convinced that the reason for this was that the Muslim population in Ahmedabad
is relatively high and Muslims are concentrated in Jamalpur and other parts of
the Old City. This riot he believed was the second after the one in 1969 where
Hindus have been dominant. He confidently said that after 27th February when 58
persons were killed in Godhra, the riots came as a reaction to that event. He
said that ninety five per cent of the riots have been started by Muslims. Godhra
had been pre-planned by the ISI. The media had been one-sided, according to him,
since they had not interviewed relatives of the killed passengers. Further, the
media had not exposed Pakistan. s role. The . Hindu hurt. had been aggravated by
media role. He was critical of the assertion that the riots were well planned.
He said that these were beyond the control of the Sangh Parivar and were a
spontaneous reaction to Godhra: "We can attract the masses but not wholly
control them." Thus the mobs were made up of local people. In C.G. Road, upper
class people, including women participated. There was a focused attack on Muslim
properties not just looting. Youth of 18-20 years were more active. In
Ahmedabad, Muslims were more pro-Pakistan and he said that Muslims must
assimilate into Hindu society. With Muslim entry into some housing colonies,
Hindus were gradually selling off their flats and there had been changes in the
character of the locality where Muslims lived. He said he did not know why
Muslims leaned towards Pakistan. He also stated that the current riots are
organized by the Congress (I). The Congress (I) was doing this to win over
Muslims.
The Pracharak repeatedly stated
that Muslims were responsible for the current rioting and that the media was
biased, excluding Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar. He was angry with TV: Star, Zee,
Aaj Tak for their biased role, including media-person Prabhu Chawla. He believed
that minor sporadic riots would continue. He denied allegations that the riots
were politically and electorally motivated. He admitted however that if this had
not happened, elections for the BJP would have been difficult. Even now
elections would be difficult. He believed that Hindus have suffered economically
more, but Muslims are psychologically demoralised and their pro-Pakistan
activities will be curbed for 4-5 years.
The Baudhik Pracharak believed
that the Hindus are scared of a backlash. Fear and problems of alienation will
continue. The problem is with Muslim religious and political leaders not the
masses. As far as the media is concerned, including Gujarat Samachar and
Sandesh, they are "yellow journalists" and have primarily economic interests. He
denied reports of VHP-RSS-Bajrang Dal involvement, including those concerning
the presence of Ministers in control rooms.
To the question if Muslims fester
in camps would not there be a danger of terrorism? he replied "I do not know. We
did not create the problem." When asked if the ISI was behind the Godhra attack,
hadn. t the ensuing communal violence and divide, economic disruption and the
damage to Gujarat and to India. s image, been a great success for the ISI? he
agreed, but blamed the riots on the Muslims and the media. He believed that
Gujarat would rebound economically soon, as minor riots and clashes will not
affect the economy and business.
The ultimate solution to the
problems with the Muslims, the Pracharak said, was the annihilation of Pakistan.
Interview carried out by Kamal
Mitra Chenoy.
(Subhas Chowk, Ahmedabad, Gujarat,
26/3/2002).
Box 10: On Police Transfers
On March 24, the Gujarat
administration transferred 27 police officers in the State. Clearly, the police
officers who took firm positions against the marauding VHP and Bajrang Dal mobs
faced the ire of the Modi Government. Others who maintained a purposeful
inaction and were partisan towards the mobs or were spotted abetting them were
rewarded with key and important postings.
The state Director General of
Police, A.K. Chakravarty, was not consulted about the transfers, since these
were done completely at the behest of the political leadership. Chakravarty
objected to these transfers and wrote to the additional chief secretary that
four IPS officers were being transferred for fulfilling their constitutional
obligations. He stated that such transfers would demoralize the police force.
The SP of Kachch, Vivek Srivastava
was transferred because he arrested the area. s Home Guards Commandant, Akshay
Thakkar, a member of the VHP, local VHP leader Vasant Patel and a Shiv Sena
pramukh for attacking the priest of a Dargah in the area. The State Home
Minister Gordhan Zadaphia, a hardcore VHP man and an appointee of VHP leader
Praveen Togadia, called Srivastava asking him to drop the charges. This was
folowed by a call from the Chief Minister. s office. Since he did not comply,
Srivastava was transferred. After his transfer communal violence has erupted in
Kachch as well.
Rahul Sharma, who had been
transferred as SP of Bhavnagar recently, took strong measures to stop rioting
mobs in Bhavnagar on March 1. He resorted to some rounds of firing himself and
rescued over 400 Muslims who were attacked by a mob near a madrassa in Akuada.
He took strong action against the mob leaders like Shiv Sena. s Kishore Bhatt.
Sharma has been transferred.
Other police officers like DCP
P.B. Gondhia, who had named BJP MLA Maya Kodnani and VHP leader Jaideep Patel in
his FIR on the Naroda-Patia massacre in Ahmedabad has been shunted out to civil
defence.
On the other hand, R.J. Savani,
who is reportedly close to the VHP, has been appointed DCP (Crime) while Sanjay
Gadhvi, a friend of Togadia has replaced Gondhia as DCP (Zone IV), Ahmedabad.
P.N. Barot who has been chosen by
the Government to investigate the two worst outbreaks in Ahmedabad in Naroda and
Chamanpura has on record questioned the veracity of the FIRs registered.
Clearly, the Modi Government has
made every attempt to control and communalise the police force.
Box 11: No Preventive Arrests
Reported in the Indian Express,
Ahmedabad Edition, March 6, 2002, page 1.
Preventive Arrests on February
27th After the Godhra Incident in Ahmedabad
Police Station Arrests
Naroda 0
Gomtipur 0
Shaherkotda 0
Vejalpur 0
Kalupur 0
Gaekwad Haveli 0
Eliss Bridge 0
Navrangpura 0
Naranpura 0
Ghatlodia 0
Astodia 2
Appendix 1
Secret Circular of Gujarat Police
To,
All Police Commissioners
All District Police Officers
&
For Information: Police Ahmedabad
All range IGPs/DIGPS
From: Director of Police
(Intelligence)
Gujarat State, Ahmedabad
Ref.:D.2/2,Com/Muslim/Activity/84/99 of 1/2-2-99
You are asked to intimate the
details of persons (Muslims) involved in communal riots which occurred in your
city/district during the last five years viz (1) offence registration No. (2)
Section (3) Place (4) What judgement by court? (5) How many times the person is
booked under CRPC Section 107, 151, 110 or PASA, NASA?
Please submit the dossier of
criminals and persons with communal mentality.
Please prepare the complete
dossier and send with special messenger about branches of Students Islamic
Movement of India located in your district/Cities with the names, addresses
telephone numbers of the office bearers and active workers. The details of
addresses of offices also be given.
Please intimate how many Darul
Ulams are functioning in your districts/cities where the same are located.
The boys and girls studying there
belong to which Country/State/District and their numbers.
Details and types of degree
awarded. Whether the same are recognised by the Government. and from which
foreign countries they receive assistance and quantum of the same.
Please intimate the details of
existing Muslim organizations in your district/ with their address and who are
the leaders working for their organizations, their names addresses, total
members, telephone numbers etc.
Please intimate the places where
Istemas are organized by Muslims in your districts/cities and total number of
persons attending Istemas. Name the participating religious leaders and the
names of persons actively involved in the activity with addresses.
Please intimate about the number
of Pakistani Nationals in your District/cities, when they came. How many went
back, How many got Indian nationality? What are the activities at present?
Please intimate the details of
Muslims in your cities who are involved in narcotic and smuggling activities.
How many times they have been detained under COFEPOSA, PASS, NASA, and deported?
Prepare the dossier with names and other complete details.
Please open the dossier of Muslims
individuals who are involved in the offence of assault with knives or scissors,
rioting and murder with their names and the copy of the same to be sent here.
Please intimate the names of
political leaders, with their names and their party, who are supporting these
criminals and assist them for release for help in the polls.
Sd/- P.B.Upadhyaya
Appendix 2
Translation of a Gujarati Leaflet
[A leaflet circulated in Kolol,
Gujarat.]
If you have the blood of Hindu
parents running in your body then put the following suggestions into practice
without fail. Otherwise take it for granted &
1. More than 95% of Muslims are
doing business. More than 95% of their customers are Hindus. Mostly they have
bakeries, automobile workshops, computer centres, carts selling tea- omelettes,
saris and cloth businesses, shoes and sandals shops, mutton shops. For their
shops they take Hindu names such as Gujarat, Royal, Ronak, Pasand, Manpasand,
Anand, Milan, Ekta, Bharat and Gangotri and create an illusion of being Hindu
shops. They make a profit of close to Rs. 4 crore every year from the Hindu
customers of Kalol town alone. The following is the list of the yearly income of
Kalol Muslims from their respective businesses. Before you allow the Muslim
merchants who make our Hindu brothers and sisters jobless and steal their
livelihood to prosper, please read the following list of figures. Imagine how
many Hindus can be given livelihood with an amount such as Rs. 4 crores! And
Muslim merchants are using this Hindu money only to make their religion more
fanatic, to murder Hindu youth, to beguile young Hindu women to become Muslims
and to rape them. Therefore, before buying the goods from the Muslim shops
think. Won. t you be helping these Muslims indirectly in murdering your own
Hindu brothers and in raping your own Hindu sisters? Recognize the true face of
Muslims who cut off the very hands that have fed them.
Lucky Paradise tea shop Rs. 70
Lakhs yearly
Partnership in a computer centre
Rs. 20 Lakhs "
Shoes and Sandal shops Rs. 50
Lakhs "
Sari shops Rs. 50 Lakhs "
Automobile workshops Rs. 50 Lakhs
"
Carts selling omelettes- keema Rs.
20 Lakhs "
Meat [Mutton] shops Rs. 30 Lakhs "
Liquor business Rs. 60 Lakhs "
Hotel business/eElectronics Rs. 40
Lakhs "
Rickshaw, Jeep and other business
Rs. 10 Lakhs "
_________________
Total Rs. 4 crores yearly
2. Don. t be under the impression
that after these riots they will stop committing such murders and rapes. Instead
of committing mass murders and gang rapes they will surely continue with the
murders and rapes intermittently and in different villages and towns. And the
figures will be in thousands and hundreds of thousands. Therefore, unite!
3. Muslim Labor Unions instigate
the Hindu workers to go for a strike and thus create an enmity between the
management and the workers. In reality, they scheme against the workers and loot
lakhs of Rupees from the Companies in the name of compromise. Since the
employers and employees are Hindus, in their fight against each other the
Muslims stand to gain both ways while the workers and the companies lose crores
of rupees. Therefore, from now on, insist on fighting your cases only through
the Hindu unions. (Instead of insisting on court verdicts, they insist on
compromise with the management.)
4. There are among us some
Jayachands and Amichands who keep these Muslims as their business partners.
Recognize them and isolate them and do not buy any thing from their shops,
because, indirectly, the Muslim partners also benefit from their profits. If you
stop buying goods from their shops then the Hindu partners will learn a lesson
and break from their Muslim partners. For example, Smart Computer, Kiosk
Computer, Noble Type Class/Computer Center and the adjacent Tuition Classes are
all run by the Muslims. Remove your children from these computer centers and get
them admitted in the computer centres run by the Hindus.
5. Teach your children not
cricket, but karate, because, through karate they will grow physically,
educationally and spiritually.
6. They don. t pay any tax to the
government. But, with the money earned from the sweat of the Hindus, the Central
Government sends 1.5 lakh of Muslims to Mecca on Haj pilgrimage. They get free
medical aid and the government pays them Rs. 25,000 for their flight ticket.
But, in order to go for a pilgrimage to Mansarovar, 85% of the Hindus have to
obtain permission from the Chinese embassy on their own and they have to take
care of their medical needs at their own expense, and moreover have to pay Rs.
40,000. To make a pilgrimage each pilgrim has to spend about Rs. 60,000 to
80,000 at his own expense. The Central Government does not offer them any
monetary or medical help. This can happen, in the whole world, only in India, a
country where the majority are Hindus.
7. Friends, we Hindus keep awake
day and night and earn our living through our hard work. But, do we ever think
about the education of our children!? With the intention of giving them the best
education you get them admitted in schools such as St. Xavier. s and St. Anne. s
and consider it prestigious. In fact, this is the biggest mistake of your life.
In order to make the Hindus forget their religion, the Christian schools inject
the tenets of Christian religion into the tender minds of the students right
from their childhood. On account of your irresponsibility and the Christian
education influenced by the Christian tradition, when your child becomes a
youth, he/she is already a half-Christian. Our children are familiar with the
foreign culture and foreign personalities, but totally ignorant of Shri Ram of
Ramayana, of Shri Krishna of Mahabharat, of Jagatguru Shankaracharya or of other
sages. You only have to imagine as to what will happen after their generation?!
Therefore, insist on educating your children only in those schools which are run
by Hindu organizations. There your children will grow physically, mentally,
educationally and spiritually. There they can acquire clear and true knowledge
about Hindu religion.
8. If we could save the Rs.4 crore
that we mentioned earlier, we could strengthen the hands of our Hindu merchants
and, moreover, we could open a school or a college every year and we could give
our children free education in our Hindu schools.
9. There is a separate bank run by
the Muslims. It finances the Muslim gangs. With an intention of deceiving and
defrauding the Hindu girls studying in schools and colleges they take Hindu
names such as Raju, Pintu, Rajan, Montu, Chintu etc. It is a sinister design,
which is well planned and well organized. It is happening in every village and
city. In the Godhra episode the Muslim . gundas. had abducted about 25 to 30
women, then raped them, after which cut their breasts and inserted burning rods
into their private parts. If we take the total of all the incidents that take
place every day at various places, then, in Gujarat alone, there are at least 10
thousand cases of defrauding Hindu girls and as many cases of Hindu girls being
raped, every year. Even after the Godhra episode they will continue to do the
same with the same method but with a double intensity. They have murdered
thousands of Hindus in Kashmir. Right in front of the eyes of the brothers and
fathers, the Muslim terrorists raped their sisters and daughters and then killed
them. On account of this hundreds of thousands of Hindus had to flee from
Kashmir. Hindus, wake up! If you want to save your sisters-daughters and if you
want to save Gujarat and the rest of India from becoming another Kashmir then,
from today onwards, keep a watch on your girls that they don. t keep any sort of
relationship with Muslims. The Hindu boys studying in the colleges could save
the Hindu girls from the hands of the Muslim . goondas. either by themselves or
with the help of Hindu organizations.
9. An appeal to the wealthy
Hindus: Lest your money reach the government and through the government the
Muslims, donate generously to the Hindu organizations to help them build schools
and colleges. If you yourself don. t make a good use of your money then by now
you would have known as to how, where and by whom that money is being used. By
the help of the money acquired through you future generations could understand
Hindu religion in truth and clarity. Moreover, the money could be used for
self-defense as well as offence. There are many nations in the world where the
Muslims could go, while we have made a secular state out of India where 85% are
Hindu citizens. Nepal, the only Hindu nation, is utterly poor and now, with the
help of Pakistan and I.S.I., it has become a center of Muslim terrorists. And
therefore, especially for the sake of the future generations of Hindus, bring an
end to all sorts of relationships with Muslims,
business-educational-social-political. This and this alone is the alternative
that is left.
10. Prithviraj Chauhan pardoned
Mohammad Gori seventeen times. What is the fruit of that? On the eighteenth time
Prithviraj and Chand Bharot were caught in the battlefield through deception and
betrayal. His eyes were gouged and finally Prithviraj and Chand Bharot had to
lose their lives!? Prithviraj Chauhan was a great warrior but he was not a
successful and farsighted king. On account of that, after the fall of
Prithviraj, came the end of Hindu empire and the foundation of Muslim empire was
laid. Hindus like Jayachand contributed equally to the victory of that battle.
Cautioned by this Chanakya wrote in his "Niti Sutra": "Alms and pardon should be
given only to the deserved; when given to the undeserved they are sure to be
misused." Therefore, if we still don. t learn from history, continue to keep our
relationship with the Muslims and if we are not united then those days are not
very far when the 85% of the Hindu citizens of India will have to see with their
own eyes, after some years, the future generations becoming Muslims.
11. No matter what party you
belong to and what ideology you hold to, never forget the fact that first and
foremost you are a Hindu. A minority religious community of just 15% , on
account of its fanaticism and solidarity, have been making the national parties
of India dance according to its tune. So, just think! What a great and wonderful
success it would be when the 85% strong Hindus unite!? The Muslims would vote
only that party which their . mullahs. ask them to vote. But with us, there is
no such practice till today. Therefore, wake up and join and participate in the
Hindu organizations and vote only the party these organizations ask you to vote.
Thus, in every state and in the center a Hindu government could be set. If that
happens then we can create a wonderful future. Otherwise & & &
12. Let us boycott completely the
films of Muslim Stars. In Hindi films they make actors and actresses playing
Hindu roles songs with words like . khuda. . allah. etc. There is too much use
of Urdu-Farsee phrases, while, in order to insult Sanskrit language they make
comedians utter pure Hindi and thus make fun of it. They show hero and heroine
having their . first night. (Suhagrath) inside the Hindu temple, right in front
of the gods. There are scenes of sacrificing in the temple and scenes of
sprinkling blood on the face of . kalka mata. , but they never show any
producer, director, hero or heroine acting out these scenes in the mosque. The
reason: if they show such scenes in the films they will be killed. Salman
Rushdie. s book was banned in India. If the 15% Muslims could do this then the
85% strong Hindus could unite and boycott the films produced, directed and acted
by Muslims, then we could save the insult done to the Hindu religion in the
films. If the Hindu hero-heroines, producers and directors cooperate in such
scenes then we must boycott their films too.
13. Friends, if you are a
non-vegetarian, stop and think! The cow is an inseparable part of Hindu culture.
Lord Krishna, as a cowherd, had taken care of the cows. When the Muslims serve
you mutton it is not only of goats, but also of cows and bulls. It is not only a
blatant insult to the Hindu religion, also along with that, there is a loss of
millions of rupees, every year, to the cowherds and farmers. On account of your
non-vegetarian diet lakhs of Muslim butchers make a living and lakhs of low
caste vegetable traders such as Vaghrie-Raval-Chamar-Mochi-Harijan are made
jobless. Thus, besides insulting the Hindus, they also harm cowherds, farmers
and vegetable traders. To run these butcheries the Indian Government gives them
millions of rupees as subsidy, which is never recovered. Hindus, wake up, at
least now!
14. By going to the liquor-dens
run by the Muslim goondas many Hindus ruin their families by wasting away in
liquor what they have earned through their sweat. These Muslim goondas, they
themselves, never drink, but by making the Hindus getting addicted to liquor
they earn crores of rupees. If we take the case of Kalol town alone they earn
about 60 lakh rupees, every year, from the Hindus through this business. How
much development of Kalol could have been achieved through this amount of money!
And where are they going to use this money? They use the earning of your sweat
in seducing Hindu girls and murdering Hindu boys. Therefore, if you don. t give
up drinking liquor then history will never forgive you.
15. Those who talk about
Hindu-Muslim Harmony, don. t they know that the Muslim attackers, right from the
day of invasion to this day, have been continuously fighting with the Hindus?
Let those who talk about harmony tell the Muslim priests to give back to the
Hindus the temples they had destroyed in Ayodhya, Kashi, Mathura and many other
places and over which they had built their mosques. Every year, the communal
riots are initiated by the Muslim community and when the Hindus retaliate they
talk about "good will and harmony". Hindus, who go first to the mosque on the
primary peak of Pavaghad and then go to take the . darshan. of Maha Kali Mata,
now wake up. Now onwards go only to the Hindu temple.
Appendix 3
Justice Ravani. s Submission to
the National Human Rights Commission
21st March 2002
To
The Honourable Chairman
National Human Rights Commission
New Delhi
Sub: Written submission pursuant
to the oral submissions made at the public hearing by the Honourable Commission
on 20th March 2002 at Circuit House Annexe, Ahmedabad.
Respected Sir,
As suggested by the Hon. Chairman,
that I should submit in writing regarding the incidents of shifting of the
official residence of Justice. M. H. Kadri, a sitting Judge of Gujarat High
Court and other related matters, I am submitting as follows:
That at about 3.00 p.m. on 28th
February 2002, I started receiving telephones about the violence having erupted
in the city. Some advocates phoned me that in front of the High Court, trucks
were burnt and Judges had left the High Court. I was shocked to hear this,
particularly for the reason that I knew that in the High Court premises a police
company is stationed and even on the opposite side of the High Court a few
policemen used to remain standing.
I telephoned some of my friends
belonging to the minority community. At about 4.00 p.m. I could contact Justice
Kadri. He informed me that the situation was very tense near about his bungalow.
Incidents of looting and arson had started taking place. I asked him about the
policemen that had been placed at his residence. He told me that, two
ill-equipped police constables are there. I told him that I was requesting my
sources for providing further adequate protection at his bungalow. I contacted a
retired DSP and requested him to speak to someone in Ellisbridge police station
and visit Justice Kadri. s residence. One P.I., (probably Mr. Vachhani) visited
Justice Kadri. s house. He told him that he had no extra police force but he
himself would be taking rounds and keeping watch.
After an hour or so, I again
contacted Justice Kadri. He informed me that nearby Dhuliakot area (where the
High Court Judges Bungalows are located) further incidents of
looting and arson had taken place.
Even near Gujarat College and near Nagari Hospital, garages belonging to
minority communities were damaged or burnt. Thereupon, I requested a friend
staying in Muslim Society opposite Navrangpura Police Station. In that locality
high police officers and high Government officers were staying. The friend told
me that the SRP are placed here but its not safe to keep them outside. Justice
Kadri. s house is very near from here. If arrangement could be made to give
intimation to him about any urgent need, he would see to it that SRP people may
rush there. But then he asked me, "will the mob give him time (Justice Kadri) to
telephone either to you or anyone in Muslim society?" Hearing this I felt
exasperated but continued to remain in touch with Justice Kadri. I remained in
touch with him till about 10.30 p.m. to 11.00 p.m.
The next day i.e. 1st March 2002,
around 8. 30, I tried to contact Justice Kadri, but on telephone there was no
response. Therefore I got worried and contacted protocol officer of Gujarat High
Court. He told me that late at night Justice Kadri along with his family members
had shifted to the nearby bungalow of Justice Vaghela. I requested the protocol
officer to convey to Justice Kadri that I was worried and he may contact me as
soon as possible. At about 11.30 a.m. Justice Kadri telephoned me and told that
pursuant to the suggestion of Chief Justice and Brother Judges, he had shifted
along with his family members to the bungalow of Brother Justice Vaghela. He
further told me that he was being asked to shift to Judges Bungalow in
Vastrapur. On telephone instantly I told him that tell anyone who is suggesting
you to shift that for a sitting Judge to shift from his official residence for
the reason that he is not given full protection would amount to insult to the
independence of Judiciary and also an insult to the secular philosophy of the
Constitution. In reply he requested me whether I could come down to his
residence. I told that as soon as practicable I would reach there.
Before proceeding to Justice
Kadri. s place, I tried to contact Justice R. A. Mehta, Director, Judicial
Academy. He was not available at his residence but I came to know from his
residence that Justice Divecha, Retired High Court Judge and Former Chairman
MRTP was forced to shift from his residence and his house was ransacked. I
contacted Justice Divecha at his friends residence. I saw to it that my message
is conveyed to Justice Mehta that he should reach Justice Kadri. s residence as
soon as possible and that I was going there. At about 1.15 p.m. or 1.30 p.m., I
reached residence of Justice Kadri. After some time Justice Mehta also reached.
From the talk that we had with
Justice Kadri, I gathered that:
Chief Justice Dharmadhikari was
worried about the safety of Justice Kadri and his family members and was
requesting him to shift to Judges Bungalow in Vastrapur or to his own residence
which is near Judges Bungalows.
Military intelligence people had
told Justice Kadri that it would be proper to shift from that bungalow as police
force kept at his residence was not sufficient to protect against the mob
violence and that he should not rely for his safety on local police.
The military people had offered
that they can ensure his safety in military guest house in cantonment area.
Justice Kadri asked for our
opinion and at that time Justice Mehta received telephone on his mobile from the
registrar of the High Court who was speaking from the residence of the Chief
Justice. The registrar informed that two bungalows i.e. Bungalow No. 14 and
Bungalow No. 26 were ready and any of them could be occupied by Justice Kadri.
Justice Mehta handed over the phone to Justice Kadri. After finishing talk with
the registrar, Justice Kadri asked us as to what do we feel now and what should
he do.
I told Justice Kadri that
"Brother, I am withdrawing my philosophical assertions on telephone. Ground
reality is that the Constitutional philosophy is now in the book only. We may be
courageous but we are not soldiers fighting on the border where to move backward
even an inch would be an act of cowardice. In the situation now in which you are
placed it would be unwise not to shift to a safer place". I further told him
that he should not go anywhere else except with his kith and kin: ailing mother
aged about 85 suffering from cardiac disease and two college going girls, he and
his wife being in family and there being no other male member, what he and his
family now required was the warmth and support from his kith and kin. Military
people may protect him physically but they will not be able to give
psychological warmth and support. The same was the opinion of Justice Mehta.
During the talk with Justice
Kadri, we came to know that since yesterday night he had not taken food at all.
It was around 2.30 p.m. I told him unless he takes food in our presence we will
not leave his house. In our presence he gulped down two-three chapattis and some
vegetable. After he finished his lunch he received a phone from military people
or some one connected with military. In our presence he told on phone that he
was ready to shift to his sister-in-laws flat situated behind V.S. Hospital,
Near Tagore Hall. Thereafter, when we felt assured that he would be shifted
under military escort, we left his premises. At about 5.00 O. clock I contacted
Justice Kadri and learnt that at about 4.00 O. clock, under Military escort he
and his family members had shifted to his Sister-in-law. s place and that his
mother. s health was quite stable.
On that day evening at about 6.00
p.m. I received phone from advocate Mr. A.A. Memon. He requested me to tell
someone in police if his residence near Shah Alam Khadaki can be protected
during night time. Exasperated as I was I expressed my helplessness but told him
I was requesting Justice Mehta to do something, if he could help.
One correspondent had taken my
interview. It has appeared in www.rediff.com For your ready reference it has
been enclosed. There are some inaccuracies with regard to dates, timings and
certain names. But as far as the views and general details contained therein, I
stand by the same.
A. P. Ravani
Appendix 4
Collateral Damage in the Communal
Violence
Rough estimates of economic losses
made by English and Gujarati press and Times of India, 27 and 31st March, 2002;
Business Standard, 19 March, 2002.
*Rs. 3,000 crore due to close down
of shops, industries and commerce.
*Rs.1,000 crore in Surat due to
damage to textile mills, handloom mills
*More than Rs. 10 crore due to
burning down of 60 Opel Astras parked outside GM Motors Unit at Halol.
*More than Rs. 2 crores at the
Lucky Film studio nearby
*Rs 4 crore due to burnt Honda
City and Accord fleet of cars at Landmark Honda showroom at Thaltej,
Gandhinagar.
*Rs. 600 crore loss to hotel
industry at Ahmedabad
At least 20,000 workers in Hotel
industry rendered jobless and many missing.
*Rs. 500 crore due to burnt down
hotels and restaurants in Bhavnagar, Ahmedabad, etc.
*20,000 two-wheelers and 4,000
cars were burnt
*Thousands of crores due to arson
of thousands of houses, buildings.
*The Gujarat State Road Transport
Corporation estimated a loss of Rs. 12,50 crore and Transport companies have
lost business of Rs. 70 crore.
*The Gujarat Chambers of Commerce
and Industry put the losses at Rs. 2,000 crores.
*About 20 masjids and dargahs have
been razed to the ground in Ahmedabad alone. The Archaelogical Survey of India
and Indian History Congress said that places of considerable historical and
cultural importance have been damaged and destroyed.
According to police sources, in
the State, more than 240 dargahs and more than 180 masjids were destroyed. More
than 25 madrassas were destroyed. More than 20 temples, and more than 20
churches were destroyed.