‘Indian Gujrat’s CM plotted Muslims’ massacre’

NEW DELHI—The Indian media has claimed that its investigation into 2002 post Godhra riots in Gujarat has found that the massacre of Muslims were carried out in full knowledge and sanction of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The six-month long “investigation brings confirmation that the Gujarat murder of Muslims was not a spontaneous swell of anger, but a planned genocide strategised and executed by top functionaries of the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the state authorities, with the knowledge and sanction of Chief Minister Narendra Modi,” the media said.
The media quoted a BJP MLA, who said that he was present in the meeting in which Modi gave them “three days’ time to do whatever they wanted. “He had given us three days time...to do whatever we could. He said he would not give us time after that...He said this openly,” the MLA was quoted as saying.
After three days “he (Modi) asked us to stop and everything came to a halt,” Haresh Bhatt, the then national co-coordinator of the Bajrang Dal was quoted, as saying.
“It appears that bombs were manufactured in factories owned by senior Bajrang Dal and VHP activists. Arms were smuggled from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab, and then distributed to execution squads led by MLAs and senior members of the Sangh Parivar.
Consignments of arms were not just smuggled in once, but ‘there were tens and tens of them,” a media report said. The media also claims that elaborate legal subversion was done to save those accused for their role in the genocide. To help the foot soldiers, who actually raped, killed and looted, the strategists had constituted a panel of lawyers sympathetic to Hindu cause.
“To get me out on bail, Narendrabhai changed judges thrice,” Abu Bajrangi was quoated as saying.
Thousands of Muslims held a rally in India’s financial capital on Thursday demanding justice for victims of communal riots that left hundreds dead in 1993 and led to the country’s worst bombings in retaliation.
Justice for the victims of the bombings was delivered in August after 14 years, with the conviction of 100 people, mostly Muslims. But those responsible for the deadly riots have still to be brought to book. The riots killed around 900 people, two thirds of them Muslims.
On Thursday, more than 20,000 Muslims, many of them victims of the riots, demanded that the recommendations of a judicial commission that investigated the carnage be implemented. “You could not give them protection, you could not save them. At least give them justice,” said Maulana Abdul Hamid Azhari, representing one of the many civil groups demanding justice for riot victims.
“Are 14 years not enough to deliver justice?” The Mumbai riots followed the demolition of the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya by Hindu zealots in December 1992. In retaliation, Muslim gangster Dawood Ibrahim ordered a string of bombings in the nation’s financial capital, police say.
While a special court tried the blast accused, establishing the facts behind the riots was consigned to a commission of inquiry which, Muslims say, was a euphemism for official stonewalling. But Justice B.N. Srikrishna, who headed it, spent five years collecting a mass of evidence. He indicted 31 policemen, an “effete” political leadership that failed to halt the violence, and several top hardline Hindu leaders.
The panel also accused a then top Mumbai police officer of shooting dead nine Muslim boys during the riots. He was tried and acquitted in 2003 but none of the other policemen named have been brought to trial. Politicians indicted for inciting Hindu mobs have gone on to win elections.
“We want complete implementation of the Srikrishna Commission report,” Thursday’s protesters demanded. The Supreme Court has asked Muslim groups fighting for justice to file an affidavit detailing what they say are lapses of the government of Maharashtra in implementing the panel’s report.—Agencies