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Gujarat riots : Sting operation points fingers at Modi’s role, Congress cautious

	October 29, 2007

A sting operation by Tehelka magazine telecast on Aaj Tak TV channel which showed Sangh leaders claiming that they had the tacit backing of Chief Minister Narendra Modi in perpetrating gruesome acts of violence during the 2002 riots has triggered outrage among parties across the political spectrum barring the BJP. The Congress has demanded the resignation of the Chief Minister, but has steered cleared of any possible central inter¬vention in Gujarat.





Sangh activists concede state role in riots



The Tehelka expose comes less than two months before Naren¬dra Modi goes back to the people to seek a fresh mandate from the State electorate. He had won a massive victory in 2002 soon after communal violence rocked the state.



In a six-month-long sting operation, the magazine’s investi¬gators captured senior Sangh Parivar leaders claiming how they had “avenged” the Godhra incident in which 59 people on a train were burnt to death. The massacre that followed - around 1,000 were killed - was conducted with the blessings of Modi and other senior ministers, they claimed.



“He had given us three days... to do whatever we could. He said, he would not give us time after that. He said this openly. After three days, he asked us to stop and everything came to a halt,” Modi aide Haresh Bhatt, then a Bajrang Dal leader and now the BJP MLA from Godhra, said.



Babu Bajrangi, the main accused in the Naroda Patiya massa¬cre, said Modi had “changed judges thrice” to get him out on bail. “He made everything all right, otherwise who would have had the strength...it was his hand all the way,” Bajrangi said.



About his role in Naroda Patiya, the worst-affected suburb of Ahmedabad, Bajrangi said on camera: “We organised everything...mobilised a team...chased them (Muslims) and were able to scare them into a huge khadda (pit). There we surrounded them and finished everything off.” Bajrangi said the mob “hacked” and “burnt” the victims.



Bajrangi revealed how Modi helped him evade the law after a shoot-at-sight order was issued against him. “Narendrabhai kept me at Gujarat Bhavan at Mount Abu for four-and-a-half months. After that, I did whatever Narendrabhai told me to do. If I did not have the support of Narendrabhai, we would not have been able to avenge (Godhra),” he said.



Bajrangi also revealed how P.C. Pandey, Ahmedabad’s police chief during the riots, helped destroy evidence of the massacre at Naroda Patiya.



“By the end of the evening, there were about 700-800 bodies. They were all removed. The commissioner came that night and said if there were so many dead at one place, it would create trouble for him. So he had the corpses picked up and dumped all over Ahmedabad. When they were brought to the civil hospital for the post-mortem, they were said to be from this place or that.”



Another Naroda Patiya accused Suresh Richard corroborated Bajrangi’s claims that the police were hand in glove with the mob. “The police were with us....They were shooting right in front of us.... They must have killed 70 or 80 or more...didn’t even spare women,” Richard said.



Anil Pandya, the counsel for the Gujarat government before the Nanavati-Shah commission investigating the riot cases, said: “Modi came and gave oral instructions to the police to remain with the Hindus.”



Capturing the horror of the riots and the level of state collusion - especially active participation of the state police in the riots - the magazine had Bajrangi admitting that the incident of the pregnant woman’s ‘stomach being torn’ actually took place and had VHP leader Ramesh Dave admitting that IPS officer S.K. Gadhvi had agreed to kill five Muslims in the course of his duty. It claimed that the riots across the state were planned by Sangh Parivar outfits - the VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS. It said they also had plans in place to shield those involved. The mobsters used all kinds of weapons including petrol and diesel bombs, country revolvers and fire to attack Muslims, it said, and were controlled by BJP leaders such as MLA Mayaben Kodnani and others who “drove around” Ahmedabad all day on Feb. 28, directing the vengeful crowds.



Gulbarga Society attack accused, Madan Chawal recounted how former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was kicked and then chopped to pieces and later burnt alive.



The investigation also claimed that the advocates represent¬ing the rioters in the case were all “Sangh sympathisers.” It said Arvind Pandya, the state government’s counsel in the Nanava¬ti Shah Commission, which is looking into the riots, cast asper¬sions on the judges and said, Nanavati was “after money” and Shah was “sympathetic” to them. The magazine claimed that the Godhra mob fury that led to the burning of the coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express was a spontaneous incident and not premeditat¬ed as Modi and BJP leaders have been maintaining as a “justifi¬cation” for the cataclysmic pogrom of Muslims that followed.







BJP unfazed, Congress wary



While all non-BJP parties, including the Congress, have demanded Narendra Modi’s resignation in view of the expose, the BJP appears to be unfazed. The party indicated in its immediate reaction that the Tehelka expose was Congress-sponsored, but it appeared to be sure of the ‘positive’ fall out of the expose on its poll prospects during the coming Assembly elections.



So far as the Congress is concerned, a party source said the Congress will not put the “expose” on its campaign agenda for fear it will polarise voters, “paper over caste divisions, wash away the anti-incumbency feeling and turn Modi into a hero again.”



There was a muted call from Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan for the Chief Minister to step down.



“We have been silent on Godhra and the riots so long to avoid being seen as ‘appeasing’ the Muslims. But just when the matter was fading from people’s memories, it has come back to bail Modi out,” a Gujarat Congress leader said.



The Congress campaign may, however, make tangential refer¬ence to the riots in an attempt to win the tribal vote back. It will accuse the BJP of instigating people, especially tribals, to attack and kill Muslims and then dumping them.



“Four thousand people are languishing in prisons for aiding and abetting the violence. They realise they were used as cannon fodder by Modi. Nobody has lifted a finger to get them bail. Some of them could be innocent too,” party leader Hari Prasad said.



He claimed that most of the undertrials were tribals from north and central Gujarat. The tribals had voted in large numbers for the BJP in the 2002 elections, leading to the defeat of the Congress in its traditional strongholds.



The sting has thrown up another problem for the Congress by attempting to show that Gordhan Zadaphia, Gujarat’s Home Minister during the 2002 violence, was in cahoots with the rioters.



Zadaphia is now a leader of the BJP rebels who plan a united fight with the Congress against Modi.



The Congress has now decided to have an open understanding only with the “moderate” Suresh Mehta, a former Chief Minister, and Rajkot MP Vallabhai Kathiria, who reportedly doesn’t carry a communal taint.



The central BJP leadership, however, is worried that whatev¬er the dividends in Gujarat, the Tehelka sting will dent the party’s image at the national level.



“We are not concerned about Gujarat but the larger political scheme cannot be ignored,” a leader said, claiming the BJP’s opponents are keen to damage the party keeping in mind the next Lok Sabha elections.





RJD, Left demand action against the guilty



Rashtriya Janata Dal president and Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to get Narendra Modi and senior BJP leader L.K. Advani arrested for their alleged role in the horrific Gujarat riots. He said the sting operation by Tehelka has exposed Narendra Modi’s alleged deep involvement in the post-Godhra riots. He said criminal cases should be instituted against Narendra Modi and Advani.



The Left parties said the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre and the Supreme Court should move promptly after this expose, taking the revelations on video tapes as prima facie evidence to punish those responsible for perpetrating the carnage against the Muslim community.



The CPI(M) said the shocking and graphic details of the 2002 riots as admitted by the perpetrators themselves in the expose confirmed what is well known that the Gujarat massacre was a state-sponsored affair. The CPI said the perpetrators’ statements proved the direct complicity of Narendra Modi, the police and the administration in the state-sponsored killings. It said the Nanavati Commission probing the riots should take suo motu cog¬nizance of the expose.





Supreme Court moved for early hearing of Gujarat riot cases



An organisation, the Citizens for Justice and Peace, moved the Supreme Court on Saturday, Oct. 27, seeking early hearing of the Gujarat riots cases pending for four years in the light of the Tehelka expose. The organisation also wanted the Supreme Court to call for the video tapes of the sting operation.



The application was filed in the transfer cases related to the Godhra arson; Gulberga, Naroda Gaon and Patiya massacres, and Sardarpura and Ode carnage pending since they had been stayed in November 2003.



The CJP alleged that the brazen admission of and gloating by the accused, who were roaming free in Gujarat, over the rape and killing of innocents put the lives of over 190 eyewitnesses and survivors in danger.



The application urged the court to treat the issue with the immediacy of a life threatening situation and “protect the lives of witnesses and the evidence which is likely to be destroyed by the state and its agencies.”



It said, “In the light of this report and the fact that the witnesses are still being threatened and there are allegations of complicity between the killers and not just the police and law and order machinery but sections of the judiciary, the security and safety of the victim survivors and witnesses remains a seri¬ous question mark. It is imperative that the matters for re-investigation and transfer out of the State get heard on an urgent basis.”



CJP secretary Teesta Setalwad said that in the last five years, the State had already harmed the trials to a large extent, by repeated obfuscation, falsehoods and delays. Any further delay would only render these trials impossible to prosecute.





Legal experts have called upon the Supreme Court to bring to justice the Sangh Parivar activists caught on camera bragging about the rape and murder of Muslims during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan said the tapes of the Tehelka sting operation were admissible as evidence.



Another legal expert, T.R. Andhyarujina, lawyer for the National Human Rights Commission said that the Supreme Court under former Chief Justice V.N. Khare had shown good judicial instinct in admitting petitions seeking transfer of 14 riot cases out of Gujarat. The petitions for transfer of the cases were filed in the Supreme Court after the State High Court acquitted all 21 accused in the Best Bakery Case. Since then only the Best Bakery trial has been moved to Maharashtra. Cases related to the massacres in Sardarpura, Gulberga, Naroda Patiya, Ode, Sabarkantha and Naroda Gaon are on hold and most of the accused out on bail. The expert said, “delay is prejudicial to bringing people to justice, investigation is stalled, witnesses disap¬pear.” He said the court should decide on these cases. The expert said that once the Supreme Court takes a view that a case is made out for transfer, the stay could be vacated and Tehelka expose tapes examined by the trial court as evidence.









Three TV channels carrying Tehelka expose blacked out



Channels of three Television networks Aaj Tak, CNN-IBN and NDTV faced a blackout for a couple of days in Ahmedabad for carrying news programmes on the Tehelka sting operation. With the controversial action of the Ahmedabad District Collector triggering an outcry in the media, the State Government on Oct. 27 appeared to wash its hands off the controversial action. The Ahmedabad District Collector Dhananjay Dwivedi also said that his instructions were misinterpreted.



“The instructions were misinterpreted. It was clearly stated to the cable operators that only the particular news programme on the sting operation on the post-Godhra riot incid¬ents and other such programmes should not be shown. There was no ban on the networks showing other programmes,” Dwivedi said.



In another fallout of the expose, Government pleader Arvind Pandya, who figured in the sting, put in his papers and filed a police complaint against Aaj Tak and its Gujarat correspondent. Pandya, who represents the Government in some post-Godhra riot cases and also in the Nanavati Inquiry Commission, alleged that he was cheated after he was told that his services were required to act in a “serial” on riots. TV Today which owns the Aaj Tak channel denied the charges.



Sources in the Chief Electoral Officer’s office in Ahmedabad said “no instructions had been issued for blacking out the tele¬cast of the Tehelka expose.” They said the Ahmedabad District Collector appears to have acted on his own. The CEO’s office is reported to be inquiring from the District Collector the reason for issuing the order.







Narendra Modi walks out of TV interview on being questioned about the riots



On October 19, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi walked out of a television interview with Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN after he was questioned about the post-Godhra carnage.



BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar justified the walkout, saying Modi had been “assured” by Thapar that his queries would relate only to 2007 and not 2002, the year the riots broke out.

Thapar maintained that Modi had not set any condition on the kind of questions at the interview, recorded in Gandhinagar on Oct. 19.



Javadekar said: “He (Thapar) only kept going back to 2002. This is the era of freedom and Modi chose to withdraw when he saw that the interviewer was clearly biased towards him.”



A senior official in the Chief Minister’s Office said the interviewer had been specifically told that no question on the riots would be entertained but Thapar had a long list of 45 questions on Godhra and dissidence in the party’s state unit.



Thapar, known for his inquisitorial style, said this was the first time an interviewee had left his programme.