GUJARAT 2002 / Conspirators & Rioters :A Cold Eclipse
ASHISH KHETAN
There were the cool strategists leaders, officials, ideologues. And then there were the foot soldiers, who raped, killed and looted. The genocide was clinical
THERE WAS no spontaneity to what happened in Gujarat post- Godhra. This was no uncontrived, unplanned, unprompted communal violence. This was a pogrom. This was genocide.
In a planned, coldly strategic manner, Muslim neighbourhoods across both urban and rural Gujarat were targeted. Large sections of Hindus were united under a single objective: to kill Muslims, wherever and by whatever means, preferably by first stabbing and mutilating them, and then by setting on fire what remained, whether dead or alive. During the course of the TEHELKA sting, many accused said they preferred burning Muslims alive over other forms of death since cremation is considered unacceptable in Islam.
For three days after the February 27 fire on the Sabarmati Express at Godhra, Gujarat's BJP government receded from public view and let the armed mercenaries of Hindu organisations take over. For three days, absolute anarchy reigned. Execution squads were formed, composed of the dedicated cadre of Hindu organisations the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bajrang Dal, the Kisan Sangh, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Masjids and dargahs were destroyed across the state. Seventy-three Muslim religious places were torched in Ahmedabad alone, 55 in Sabarkantha, 22 in Vadodara.
The architects of Gujarat's greatest shame were of two sorts. There were the coolheaded strategists, the conspirators, who plotted the carnage from behind the scenes. And there were the foot soldiers, the members of the saffron army, drugged on the vicious agenda of so-called Hindutva, who went out and looted, raped and killed. On occasion, the planners were also sometimes emboldened to go out and participate in the massacres.
Ahmedabad: Carnage Capital
In Naroda, Gulbarg, Kalupur and Dariyapur, murderous mobs armed to the teeth obeyed the Sangh Parivar's every word
Muslims who had begged police to protect them the day before huddle in the wreckage of their burned out homes in Ahmedabad
Photo: Ami Vitale
THE MOST horrifying massacre of the Gujarat riots was the one at Naroda Gaon and Naroda Patiya localities in Ahmedabad. A local Bajrang Dal leader, Babu Bajrangi, was one of the main conspirators. He started planning the massacre soon after the news of the Sabarmati incident broke. Starting in the evening of February 27, firearms and inflammable material were collected; Bajrangi also formed a select team, drawn from the cadre of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal. Members of the Chhara community, a denotified criminal tribe, were also roped in. TEHELKA spoke to two of them, Suresh Richard and Prakash Rathod. Both believed, and were made to believe, that by killing Muslims they were doing a great service to Hinduism.
On February 28, 2002, Bajrangi marshalled a murderous mob through the narrow bylanes of Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaon. Egging the mob on was also local BJP MLA Mayaben Kodnani, who is also a doctor. Both Richard and Rathod have been recorded on TEHELKA's spycam saying that Kodnani drove around Naroda all through the day, urging the mob to hunt Muslims down and kill them. Kodnani's trusted lieutenant, BJP member Bipin Panchal, was also present with his own small band of followers, armed to the teeth. All through the massacre, Bajrangi and VHP state general secretary Jaideep Patel were on the phone with each other. Bajrangi did not reveal whether Patel was also involved in the planning. However, he did say that the death toll was being communicated to Patel at regular intervals. Several survivors from Naroda Gaon have identified Patel as the leader of the Naroda mob.
At the end of the day the total "score" as Bajrangi chose to term estimates of the number of Muslims killed in Naroda was well over at least 200. This figure has not been acknowledged by the state government; officially, 105 people were killed at Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaon. Naroda, however, was far from the only Ahmedabad locality to be turned into a mass incinerator. A few kilometres away, VHP leaders were leading a frenzied mob at Meghaninagar. The target was a housing society called Gulbarg, a building inhabited by Muslims.
TEHELKA stung three participants in the carnage Mangilal Jain, Prahlad Raju and Madan Chawal all three local petty traders and all three with cases against them for their part in the riots. They said they and other members of the mob had been led by VHP leaders Atul Vaid and Bharat Teli, both of whom were named as accused in the FIR but were subsequently cleared of all charges when the police filed the chargesheet. Chawal gave a graphic description of how he and his accomplices first hacked former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri apart limb from limb, and then made a heap of his body parts, which they set on fire.
The official death toll of the Gulbarg massacre stood at 39, but the accused told TEHELKA that the actual number of those killed was much higher. Apart from the housing society's residents, the dead also included Muslims who lived in nearby slums who had taken shelter in the building. TEHELKA also spoke to VHP leaders Rajendra Vyas and Ramesh Dave, who planned attacks on Muslims in Kalupur and Dariyapur, among Ahmedabad's most communally sensitive areas. Ahmedabad city VHP president Rajendra Vyas, who was also in charge of the ill-fated Sabarmati Express, said that on the day of the fire on the train that killed 59 karsevaks, he had told the VHP cadre that "the Muslims had played a one-day match and given us a target of 60 runs. We shall now have to play a test match and we won't stop until we score 600."
Vyas, who lives in Kalupur, was recorded on the TEHELKA camera stating that he himself had shot dead five Muslims and had burned down nine Muslim houses. Ramesh Dave was the VHP's point man in Dariyapur. He said he and his fellow planners had targeted and killed Muslims who had been in their sights for over 20 years " chun-chun ke maara is baar (we specifically hunted them down)". Dave also claimed that along with a friend, he had arranged for about 10 small firearms.
Vadodara: Charred City
Every Muslim locality was attacked in phases spread over two months. At Best Bakery, 14 people were burnt alive THOUGH NOTHING could be compared to the violence unleashed in Ahmedabad, Muslims in Vadodara the second largest city in Gujarat were also assaulted in a phased manner. The first round, which started on February 27 itself, lasted until March 2, with the worst incident taking place on March 1, when 14 persons were burnt alive at the Best Bakery in Hanuman Tekri. Thereafter there was violence between March 15-20 and, following this, between April 25-May 2, with some incidents taking place in the intervening period, especially on March 25.
Almost every major Muslim locality of the city was attacked. Kisanwadi, Sama, Ashabiwi Chawl, Madhavpur II, Makkarpura, Audhootnagar, Raghovpura, Noor Park, Karelibagh, Gotri village, Hajimiyan ka Sara, Hanuman Tekri, Roshannagar, Panigate, Taiwada and Macchipith were among the areas where Hindu mobs went on a rampage. Hundreds of Muslim homes and businesses were looted and torched. In Sama, a relatively new part of Vadodara with a predominantly Hindu population, a mob of around 20 people attacked the residence of Prof JS Bandukwala, a professor of physics at the Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) and a respected figure in Vadodara, on the morning of February 28. The mob left after Prof Bandukwala and his daughter managed to take shelter in their Hindu neighbour's house.
However, on the following day, March 1, a larger mob, armed with gas cylinders among other weaponry, launched a second assault and succeeded in torching Bandukwala's house. The homes of two other prominent Muslim bureaucrats in the area were burned down. TEHELKA stung a rioter, Dhimant Bhatt, who was in the mob that torched these three homes. Bhatt is an accountant by profession he is the chief accountant and auditor of MSU but his real vocation is to inflict damage on Muslims.
Besides being a university employee, he also works as a personal assistant to the current Vadodara BJP MP Jayaben Thakkar. Bhatt revealed that on the night of the Sabarmati Express incident, a meeting was convened of Vadodara's top BJP, RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal and ABVP functionaries. Bhatt, who is also an RSS member, was present at the meeting, which is where, he says, a strategy of attacking Muslims was outlined. A plan for providing legal assistance to Hindus who may face legal action after the riots was also chalked out at the same meeting.
TEHELKA met another Vadodara BJP leader, Deepak Shah, who not only corroborated what Bhatt told us but also gave the name of the farmhouse where the meeting took place Narmada Farmhouse. Shah, who is also a member of the Syndicate of the MSU, also corroborated what Babu Bajrangi had boasted of in Ahmedabad that saffron organizations used lower-caste Hindus for carrying out anti-Muslim attacks.
Sabarkantha: Nowhere To Run
'Lock the door from outside and burn the Muslims inside.' This was the chilling war cry to which the mobs rallied, led by a VHP leader who had vowed to kill 500 Muslims
Riot victims at a relief camp in Sabarkantha district, 150 kms south of AhmedabadTHE MAXIMUM economic loss that Muslims suffered was in Sabarkantha district, with hundreds of Muslim houses and businesses razed to the ground. Anil Patel, the VHP vibhag pramukh (departmental chief), was among the key planners of the carnage here. He told TEHELKA that after the Sabarmati incident, he had taken a vow to kill at least 500 Muslims, failing which he would relinquish the VHP office he was holding. "Our war cry was 'Lock the door from outside and burn the Muslims from the inside'," Patel told TEHELKA. He also said he had openly urged the VHP and RSS cadres to go out and kill Muslims and burn their properties. There was hardly a village in Sabarkantha where Muslim houses and businesses were not torched, Patel said. A total of 126 Muslim houses were reduced to ashes in Patel's own village, Dhansura, he revealed.
Patel said there while was no single strategy, the intent was to inflict maximum casualties and damage on Muslims. He also said that Pravin Togadia had been coordinating matters at the district level during the carnage. Patel said Togadia told him to work in such a way so as to ensure that important VHP workers were not booked and sent behind bars. In Sabarkantha, 1,545 houses and 1,237 business of Muslims were torched, and 549 shops were ransacked.
Role Of The Police :Khaki Klan Killers
From willing connivance to leading attacks on Muslims, the police smoothed the path for the rioters in every way they could
AT AROUND 6pm on March 2, 2002, in Bhavnagar district's Ghogha Road, over 200 Muslim children were sheltering in a madarsa when a Hindu mob descended on it, baying for blood. Rahul Sharma, then Bhavnagar Superintendent of Police (SP), ordered his troops to open fire. The mob dispersed, the children were saved.
Over the next two weeks, after the Bhavnagar incident, the police took similarly courageous action at a few other places. By March 16, eight people had been killed in police firing in Bhavnagar district; five were Hindu, two Muslim. Timely intervention kept the district more or less free of killings. On March 16, however, at 10:10am, Sharma received a call from then Minister of State for Home Gordhan Zadaphia.
"Zadaphia said that while I had done a good job, the ratio of those who died in the police firing was not proper he was complaining about there being more Hindu deaths than Muslim. I told him things would depend on the ground situation and the nature of the mob," Sharma said in his deposition before the Nanavati-Shah Commission.
Sharma also told the Commission that when he had called up then Director General of Police K. Chakravarty on March 1, 2002, at around 10:20pm, to request the deployment of additional forces in Bhavnagar, the DGP had said that "though he would send one State Reserve Police Force company the next morning, I should not expect more help as the bureaucracy had been completely compromised."
The two conversations Rahul Sharma had with Zadaphia and the Director General of Police provide ample indication of the role the majority of the police force played during the 2002 massacre, joining ranks with the mobs that were setting Gujarat on fire. From egging on murderous hordes to go for the kill, to supplying them with ammunition, to transporting bombs between districts, to opening fire at Muslims who were already under attack from Hindu rioters the police facilitated the massacre in every possible way.
Here are some firsthand accounts from the rioters and conspirators of the help they received from sections of the police in the nightmare days when the upholders of law turned into rioters in uniform
'The Cops Did As The State Wished'
Talking to HARINDER BAWEJA, former ADGP Intelligence, RB Sreekumar, endorses the rioters' view that the government was on their side
When you were ADGP intelligence, had you filed a report saying weapons had been smuggled from Sabarkantha? In 2002, weapons were recovered from some Muslim areas. Our information was that they were manufactured in an iron works unit in Wadgam, owned by a VHP worker. I had sent the report in writing and also informed KR Kaushik, then the Ahmedabad police chief. When they conducted a raid, nothing was found, but I learned later that the raiding party had leaked the information, which is why nothing was found. The press found out and Hindustan Times ran a front-page report. They kept harassing me but nothing came of it. It was strongly suspected that they were manufacturing tamanchas country-made firearms.
Were these weapons used during the riots?
This information came later on. An inquiry was ordered against me but the DGP said no action could be taken because it is routine for Intelligence to share information.
Was any action taken against the raid party?
(laughs) The raid party's action was in tune with the political interests of the ruling party. The recovery was shown from the Muslims to make the point that the police was doing a good job of maintaining law and order. Subsequently, on August15, DG Vanzara and others were rewarded for this recovery.
Did you file any reports on the flow of arms or bombs during the riots?
Copies of my reports were appended in my first affidavit to the Nanavati-Shah Commission. There was a report on the distribution of trishuls. I took over in April 2002; by then, the frenzy had come down. I had sent reports saying FIRS were not registered properly, many offences were being clubbed together and that the names of the VHP leaders at the head of the mob were being left out of FIRs. This became a controversy. On none of these reports did the government take any follow-up action or seek any clarification. That is very relevant.
What They Said About Modi :Thy Hand, Great Anarch
Accused after accused testified to how the Gujarat genocide would not have been possible had Narendra Modi not sent out clear directives to the administration to look the other way
EARLIER SECTIONS have detailed how leaders of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal conspired and plotted the massacres. How preparations for largescale killings had begun soon after the news of the Sabarmati Express fire was out. How execution squads were formed comprising committed workers of various saffron outfits. How the police turned a blind eye to the violence and in some cases even participated in it, shoulder to shoulder with the mob. How the prosecution plotted to threaten and buy off survivors, instead of ensuring that the accused were convicted.
The massacre and its cover-up were executed at different levels of the BJP government and its extensions like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal. So, was there a ringmaster running the show or was the Gujarat massacre an uncoordinated affair? Was there an invisible hand pulling the strings from behind the stage?
What was the real extent of the role played by the man who ruled the state in a time of carnage that was supported by the various arms of his own government? Was Modi responsible for police complicity in the genocide? Did he give the go-ahead to such bloodthirsty leaders of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal as Babu Bajrangi, Haresh Bhatt and Anil Patel? TEHELKA tried to ascertain the truth from the assassins themselves. And this is what they had to say about Modi and his role.
Legal Subversion :Justice. Blind To The VictimThe Sangh was preparing its case for the defence even before the riots, selecting lawyers with the utmost care IT WAS not just the carnage that was clinically planned and supervised by the State, it was also the aftermath. Even before the riots began, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad had started chalking out a strategy for providing legal assistance to Hindus who were likely to be accused of rioting and killing. Dhimant Bhatt and Deepak Shah, members of the BJP's Vadodara unit Bhatt also being the chief accountant of the Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) and Shah a member of the University's executive body told TEHELKA that key members of the Sangh Parivar met on the night of the Sabarmati Express incident to constitute a panel of advocates to defend the rioters. The fact that the VHP had a good number of advocates both private lawyers and public prosecutors among its ranks, made the task easy. Deepak Shah named many Vadodara lawyers, such as Rajendra Trivedi, Neeraj Jain and Tushar Vyas, who were present in that preparatory meeting.
In district Sabarkantha, Narendra Patel and Mohan Patel both members of the RSS told TEHELKA that after the riots the RSS had formed a body called Sankalan to provide legal aid to Hindu rioters. Many of the VHP's lawyers, who had their own private practices, became defence counsels for the accused, and public prosecutors who were either members of the VHP or sympathetic to the Sangh extended indirect assistance to the rioters.
The public prosecutors, instead of taking forward the charges against the accused, actually helped them in the case. So, in many places, both the defence and the prosecution were on the same side on the side of those who looted, raped and killed. What hope then did the Muslim community have of seeing their tormentors convicted? First the police sided with the rioters through shoddy investigations, and now the prosecution too was ranged against the victims.
Chetan Shah, an active VHP member and a leading Ahmedabad lawyer, was the first to represent the accused in the Naroda Patiya massacre. The government later appointed him as the public prosecutor in the Gulbarg society case. TEHELKA met a Gulbarg case accused named Prahlad Raju, who said that while he was on the run, he was being advised by Chetan Shah about when he should surrender before the police.
In Mehsana district, Dilip Trivedi, general secretary of the VHP's Gujarat unit, is also the senior pleader leading a team of about a dozen public prosecutors working under him. Mehsana was among the worst-affected areas during the riots. Two cases in Mehsana in particular the Deepda Darwaza incident in Visnagar town and the Sardarpura incident had shaken the conscience of civil society for the number of people killed and also the barbaric manner in which the killings were carried out. Trivedi, whose job was to oppose the bail applications moved by the accused in these two cases, was accused by civil society of helping the accused get bail. After several representations before the Gujarat High Court and the Supreme Court by the victims, Trivedi was removed from representing them in riot cases. TEHELKA went to see Trivedi at his office within the Mehsana court premises on June 15, 2007.
TRIVEDI REVEALED that in his capacity as the VHP's general secretary, he had coordinated all the riot cases in Gujarat. While the reporter was sitting in Trivedi's chamber, two people walked in to discuss a riot-related case in which Hindus were accused. The men needed Trivedi's help to engage a lawyer who could represent the accused. Trivedi called up a few lawyers and tried to find his visitors a suitable lawyer. After the two men left his office, Trivedi said that the defence lawyer who was handling their case had fallen ill, and the responsibility of finding a new defence lawyer had again fallen upon him. He grumbled about having to manage everything from coordinating with government lawyers and defence advocates to talking to cops who were reinvestigating the riot cases. He further said that out of a total of 74 riot-related cases in Mehsana, only two had resulted in conviction.
"In one case, I got the acquittal after I made an appeal in the Sessions Court
In the second case, the appeal has been made before the High Court but everyone is out on bail... the conviction was wrong." He then went on to narrate the worst cases of the killing and looting of Muslims that happened in Mehsana post-Godhra. He said one such case the Sardarpura case had been stayed by the Supreme Court, but since the accused were out on bail, he was not worried. He then went on to explain how after the accused in the Sardarpura riot case were granted bail by the Mehsana court, the victims had made such a big noise, that The Times Of India had carried a front-page story accusing him of playing a partisan role in riot-related cases.
A gleeful Trivedi boasted that even though the allegations against him were true, nothing could be proved "on paper". Everybody knew, he said, that after the riots, he had camped in every district holding meetings with government prosecutors, his own workers and police officers.
In Sabarkantha, TEHELKA met public prosecutor Bharat Bhatt, who also happens to be the VHP'S district president. Bhatt said he had been doing his best to help the accused. This public prosecutor has in fact turned broker instead of fighting for justice, he is pushing for out-of-court settlements.
Legal Subversion 
evil's Advocate
The state counsel before the Nanavati-Shah Commission believes it's better to cripple Muslims than to kill them THE COUNTRY always believed that Chief Minister Narendra Modi was the guardian deity of the murderous hordes let loose across Gujarat following the Godhra carnage. This belief had acquired the force of truth not only due to Modi's own pronouncements and to those of other members of his party, but also because of an across-the-spectrum indictment of the Modi regime by the media, human rights groups and independent factfinding teams. The Nanavati-Shah Commission, the official probe into the carnage, has been recording statements for a few years now. But in a serious indictment, Arvind Pandya, the Gujarat government's counsel, reveals that he's trying to manage the proceedings.
Pandya, the special public prosecutor appointed by the Modi government to defend it before the Nanavati-Shah Commission, too believes, like everybody else, that had it not been for Modi the Hindus could not have taken their "revenge" for the Godhra killings. Pandya is privy not only to privileged state information, he is also aware of Modi's own thoughts on the matter. Leading a battery of lawyers for the past five years to absolve Modi and his government of charges of sponsoring and backing the 2002 pogrom, Pandya told TEHELKA that during the riots Modi had given oral instructions to the police to "be with Hindus".
"A Hindu-based government was there when this incident took place, so the people were ready and the state was also ready
this was a happy coincidence," Pandya said. This reporter met Pandya twice on June 6 and on June 8. On both occasions, Pandya emphasised that had there been a non-BJP government in power in 2002, the riots would never have happened. He said that Modi was so upset after the Godhra carnage that he would himself had dropped bombs on Juhapura a Muslim neigbourhood in Ahmedabad but his position as chief minister constrained him. Pandya said he believed that the mass killing of Muslims in Gujarat should be celebrated every year as "victory day". He said that crippling Muslims was better than killing them, as that would not only invite lesser punishment but a crippled Muslim would also serve as a living advertisement of what Hindus were capable of. Inflicting economic loss on Muslims was as important as killing them, Pandya asserted.
This isn't all. Even as he was defending the government before the Commission, Pandya was also simultaneously arguing the cases of the riot accused. He told TEHELKA that in many cases, the judges had given him their full cooperation and guidance.
"Every judge was calling me in his chamber and showing full sympathy for me
giving full cooperation to me, but keeping some distance
the judges were also guiding me as and when required
how to put up a case and on which date
because basically they are Hindus
so help from each and every class of people came forth
the people remained united and their only motive was the survival of Hinduism," said the lawyer.
According to Pandya, it's not just the judiciary in Gujarat that has been complicit in the victimisation and persecution of Muslims. Pandya claimed even the Nanavati-Shah Commission has been compromised. He says KG Shah, who heads the Commission along with Nanavati, is sympathetic to the BJP. Pandya was also full of derision for Nanavati, who he said was only interested in money. What follows is a part of the conversation that TEHELKA had with Pandya at his residence in Ahmedabad on June 8, 2007. Click here:
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Dance Of Hate :'Muslims, They Don't Deserve To Live'
Genocide was swift and total in Naroda Patiya. So was its cover-up. The perpetrators remain unpunished and unabashed IN WITHIN HOURS of the tragedy on board the Sabarmati Express, the BJP and its affiliates the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bajrang Dal started preparations for one of the worst acts of genocide in the history of this country. On February 28, 2002, a day after the Sabarmati Express fire, Ahmedabad witnessed mass killings of the most horrific nature. Armed saffron cadres roamed the streets, burning, looting, raping and killing Muslims at will. The neighbourhood that bled most was Naroda, a locality on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, with a mixed population of Hindus and Muslims.
In a most systematic manner, the BJP, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal formed an execution squad that carried out a pogrom from 10 in the morning of February 28 till after well past dark. Apart from firearms, tridents and swords, everything that could conceivably be turned into a weapon at short notice from bricks to gas cylinders to diesel tankers was unleashed on an entire neighbourhood of Muslims. Most victims were burnt alive. Before being set on fire, many were stabbed, raped and hacked apart.
Right through the massacre, the cellphones of the rioters were ringing constantly, with death scores being shared at regular intervals. By sundown, Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaon, the Muslim neighbourhoods in the area, had been reduced to a vast wasteland of death. Sliced up like vegetables, burnt like charcoal and, bearing the testimony of slaughter at its crudest, corpses lay scattered across what had been a lively human settlement barely a few hours before.
Naroda was no nondescript, out-of the-way place. It was just five km from the local police control room and less than four km from Shahibaug, the Ahmedabad Police headquarters. A mob armed with lethal weapons went on a killing spree for over 10 hours, yet nothing moved in the administration, no reinforcements were dispatched, no effort was made to disperse the mob. Civil society has had no doubt that it was Chief Minister Narendra Modi who was to blame for the genocide. Survivors have alleged that the police played partisan. The police have retorted that it was a riot and they were outnumbered. The government has denied any acts of omission or commission on its part. Five years on, the trial for the carnage in Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaon is yet to start.
For the last three years, the Supreme Court has been sitting on a petition filed by the National Human Rights Commission and a few NGOs to have the case reinvestigated and transferred out of Gujarat. The accused are out on bail. Narendra Modi has won a landslide electoral victory and is preparing for another. Most survivors have shifted to ghettoes on Ahmedabad's outskirts; the few who returned to their previous homes are living a marginalised life, under economic and social boycott by their Hindu neighbours.
NARODA: LAYOUT AND DEMOGRAPHYAbout 15km from the centre of Ahmedabad city, Naroda Gaon and Naroda Patiya were once home to around 2,000 daily wage-earning Muslims, a majority of them migrants from Karnataka and Maharashtra. The area lies along a highway stretch just outside the city. Across the road from it is the State Transport warehouse; nearby are the Hindu-dominated Gopinath and Gangotri housing societies. Both Naroda Gaon and Naroda Patiya are over 70 years old and are typical urban slums; both come under the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. The distance between the two is not more than a kilometre or so. While Naroda Gaon is relatively smaller, Naroda Patiya is a labyrinth of narrow lanes, flanked by close-packed, unsightly concrete structures, few of them higher than two storeys, inhabited by Muslims. Across the road from Naroda Patiya is Chharanagar, a large settlement of Chharas, a denotified tribe commonly deemed criminal and involved primarily in bootlegging and gambling. Though Hindu, Chharas are at the bottom of the caste hierarchy.
WHO WERE THE ACCUSED?
Two separate FIRs were registered for the Naroda Gaon and Naroda Patiya incidents. While only eight people were recorded as killed at Naroda Gaon, eyewitness accounts put the toll at Naroda Patiya in the hundreds. Nobody, however, knows exactly how many Muslims were killed at Naroda that day. Nobody, except, perhaps, the killers.
Among the dozens of Sangh Parivar cadres whom survivors identified as their attackers, the names of BJP MLA Mayaben Kodnani and Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi came up repeatedly as having led the mob. When filing the chargesheet, however, the police refused to prosecute Kodnani, citing lack of evidence. Bajrangi was chargesheeted along with a few BJP and VHP workers and a couple of dozen Chharas. In all, the police named 49 people as accused in the Naroda Patiya incident, and the same number were accused for Naroda Gaon as well. There are many names in common between the two lists, among them Bajrangi's. After absconding for over three months, Bajrangi was arrested amid high drama. Five months after his arrest, the Gujarat High Court granted him bail.
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Tehelka:: Free. Fair. Fearless
Dance Of Hate :Safehouse Of Horrors
Petrified Muslims in the area flocked to Gulbarg, sure of refuge for it housed former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri. Their worst fears came alive Shell-shock Qasimbhai(foreground) of Gulbarg, who lost 19 members of his family. Photo:Cherian Thomas
IN THE FIVE months of TEHELKA'S investigation into the Gujarat genocide, many rioters and conspirators spoke of their role at length. But there was one place that had not been covered Gulbarg. The housing society, situated in the eastern part of Ahmedabad, was once home to former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri. Despite the presence of a police contingent, a Hindu mob had laid siege to the society on the morning of February 28. For over five hours, Jafri kept making desperate phone calls to the police commissioner, to the chief minister's office, to Congress leaders in Delhi and to his friends, pleading for help.
For over five hours, about 30 Muslim families in the society prayed and hoped that they would be rescued. Along with them were many Muslims from the adjoining slums who had taken shelter in Gulbarg, thinking that a society housing a Congress leader would be an unassailable refuge. Finally, at around 2:30pm, the mob stormed into the society and killed whoever they could lay their hands on. The official death toll was 39. But the survivors claimed that a far greater number were killed. Jafri himself was burnt alive. The remains of his body were never found. Those killed at Gulbarg and Naroda were given a mass burial in freshly dug graves in a Muslim graveyard at Ahmedabad on March 6, 2002.
During TEHELKA'S last meeting with Babu Bajrangi on September 1, 2007, Bajrangi mentioned that he knew many VHP activists who were accused in the Gulbarg massacre. He said the VHP was not taking good care of them and that he could arrange a meeting if required. On September 8, I flew to Ahmedabad to meet the Gulbarg accused. One of Bajrangi's office assistants took me to Meghaninagar, the area where Gulbarg society was situated. We decided to meet on the road opposite Gulbarg society. The desolation of the society (it's abandoned now), located in the middle of a bustling, colourful neighbourhood, was eerie. The iron gate at the front, the walls within, the windows, the doors, the roof, they were all of the same colour charcoal black.
Shopkeepers, hawkers, neighbours, passers-by, all went about their business without sparing a glance for this piece of land. We waited there for almost 20 minutes before two senior local VHP leaders arrived. One of them, Mahesh Patel, owned a shop close by. These two VHP men do not themselves figure in the police charge sheet but they were to introduce me to those named in the list of accused. Mahesh Patel took me to his house and sent word to the accused to gather at his place. Patel gave me a run-down of the things the VHP had done for the accused from providing food in jail, to sending money to their families, to arranging legal aid (For Patel, I was an RSS man who had come down from Delhi to assess how the Hindu riots accused were keeping).
About 40 minutes later, three accused Prahlad Raju, Mangilal Jain and Madan Chawal arrived (39 Hindus were chargesheeted but at that time only these three were available). To begin with, they demolished the grand claims made by Patel that the VHP took good care of them. Their list of complaints was long and bitter. I took their phone numbers and left after promising that I would ensure their complaints were properly addressed and that they received more help from the VHP and RSS in future. On my way back, I called up Mangilal Jain on his cellphone and told him to see me at my hotel near Ahmedabad airport. I told him to bring along the other two as well.
Tehelka:: Free. Fair. Fearless
Tehelka:: Free. Fair. Fearless
Tehelka:: Free. Fair. Fearless
Godhra: The Diabolic Lie :Open Case: Gaping Loopholes
FIVE MONTHS AFTER the incident, the police produced Ajay Baria, a Hindu tea vendor, as a witness. Baria said nine Muslim hawkers dragged him to Razzak Kurkur's house, where they first forced him to load petrol onto a rickshaw, then forced him to go to Cabin A to stand as a witness while they burnt coach S-6. Why Muslim hawkers would force a reluctant Hindu to collude in their crime no one can tell. Baria is shadowed 24/7 by a police escort. His mother told TEHELKA he had become a witness out of fear.
IN AN ATTEMPT to nail religious and political Muslim leaders as the key conspirators, the police produced two witnesses: Jabir Bin Bahera and Sikandar Siddik. Bahera claimed to have bought 140 litres of petrol with fellow hawkers on the evening of February 26, 2002, and set coach S-6 on fire the next day. He named Maulvi Umarji as the mastermind. He has since retracted his statement. Siddik, who had corroborated Bahera word for word, also named another religious head, Yakub Punjabi for inciting the mob. The police detained Punjabi, but it turned out he wasn't even in the country on that day.
THREE KARSEVAKS Dinesh bhai Patel, Rambhai Patel and Nitinbhai Patel had first claimed they'd fainted due to the smoke in coach S-6 and seen nothing. But onn June 8, 2002, in an astounding volteface, they suddenly changed their statement and claimed they'd seen some Muslim hawkers throwing some liquid on the floor of the coach, as well as throwing a burning mashaal into the coach through a window. This conveniently matched the assumption of the forensic report a few days later.
Godhra: The Diabolic Lie :Shut Case: Proof Of Subversion
THE POLICE'S CASE in the Godhra tragedy reeks of malafide intention.TEHELKA's investigation exposes an intricate web of liesentwined with truth and several damning instances of corruption.
THE POLICE HAVE relied heavily on statements by nine BJP men to build their case. TEHELKA caught two of these men Kakul Pathak and Murli Mulchanfani on camera, admitting that the police had filed statements on their behalf and they were not even at Godhra station when the incident took place. They colluded with the state to further the cause of Hindutva.
THE POLICE'S CASE also relies heavily on the testimonies of two petrol pump salesmen Ranjitsingh Patel and Prabhatsingh Patel who claim they sold 140 litres of petrol to Muslim hawkers the evening before the incident. They had earlier said they had not sold any loose petrol either on the day of the incident or the evening before. TEHELKA caught Ranjitsingh on sting camera admitting that the chief investigating officer, Noel Parmar had paid him and Prabhatsingh Rs 50,000 to change their statement and falsely identify some Muslims as conspirators.
TWO OTHER MEN that the police'scase have relied heavily on areIllias Hussain and Anwar Kalandar, two Muslim hawkers who haveclaimed that they pulled the chain that stopped the Sabarmati fatally near Cabin A. Both Hussain and Kalandar retracted their statements after a year. TEHELKA tracked them down to get the truth. They said they'd been confined by Parmar for two weeks and tortured into confessing. They were also forced to memorise statements handed to them by the police.
Godhra: The Diabolic Lie :Forensic File
THE GUJARAT FORENSIC Laboratory report was filed on May 17, 2002. It concluded several things:
THERE WERE ENOUGH high impact marks on the side of the train to uphold eyewitness and survivors' accounts of intense stone pelting.
CONTRARY TO THE theories floating around till then, coach S-6 could not have been burnt by inflammable liquid thrown through the window or the door.
THERE WAS NO sign of any corrosive fluid, like acid, in the fire (contrary to what several karsevaks had claimed).
SEVERAL SAMPLES WERE collected from both outside and inside the coach on February 27 and 28, 2002, respectively. DB Talati, Assistant Director, FSL, reported traces of petro-hydrocarbons in 25 of these samples, while 20 samples had no such trace.
SIGNIFICANTLY, IN HIS report dated April 26, 2002, Talati stated that he could not say whether the petrol traces in the 25 samples matched the petrol sample from Kalabhai's petrol pump (from where the conspirators allegedly bought their petrol). Further, a huge sample 370 kgs taken from S-6 on May 1, 2002, yielded no trace of petrol.
HAVING DEMOLISHED EXISTING theories on the cause of fire, the forensic team curiously deci ded to conduct an experiment through which they claimed to prove that the fire had been set off by a huge quantity of inflammable liquid poured along the floor of coach S-6. This conclusion set the police and party machinery off in a new direction.
Tehelka:: Free. Fair. Fearless
. The 3 channels weren't pulled nationally unlike the Dawn article suggests. Also, I'm not really sure why the story was filed from 'New Delhi' when the real story is taking place in Ahmedabad, Gujrat. There is no evidence that suggests that Modi and his cronies can exert their influence on a national level, they were only successful in threatening the cable operators in one district of their state to stop airing antagonistic pieces. 
