(Secular Perspective May 16-31, 2012)
Dear Shri R.K. Raghavan,
We have been reading these days every day about your 'clean chit' to
Shri Narendra Modi, the Gujarat Chief Minister about his responsibility
about the Gujarat riots of 2002 in general and about the Ahsan Jafri
brutal murder in Gulbarg Society, in particular. The Supreme Court had
appointed you as chief of Special Investigation Team (SIT) putting full
trust in your impartiality and integrity.
We also put full trust in you and were sure that your investigation will
throw full light on the happenings of Gujarat riots and we will be able
to judge, through your investigation, what is right and what is wrong.
However, your investigations have raised storm of controversy and it is
also surprising that you have given differing reports one in 2010 and
another final closure report in 2012 finally giving 'clean chit' to Shri
Narendra Modi.
What is more surprising is that in defending your investigation and its
'truth' you have defended Narendra Modi the way even BJP could not have
defended or perhaps even Modi himself could not have defended himself.
It appears as if you were appointed by the Gujarat Government and not by
the Supreme Court of India. I read your point by point refutation of
Shri Raju Ramchandran (Amicus Curie) 'views on your report.
The fact that the Supreme Court had to appoint Amicus Curie itself is a
reflection of controversial nature of the Report. Shri Raghavanji, you
were head of CBI, the prestigious investigation agency of our country
and is the ultimate report of victims denied justice by other
investigation agencies. One can hope for justice from CBI and not even
from politicians. Politicians have their own logic. Whereas
investigation agencies like the CBI are supposed to go strictly by the
law of the land.
As a student of politics and as a political analyst I can tell you that
what happened in Gujarat in 2002 had is own politics behind it. The BJP
was loosing all elections even at local levels and lost even Assembly
bye-election and had panicked as the Assembly elections were due in
December 2002. The reason was several corruption scandals in which BJP
members were involved had surfaced and people of Gujarat were very
unhappy with its performance and BJP leaders feared its government will
be thrown out in 2002 elections.
One easiest way in our country, to win elections, unfortunately, is to
polarize the voters on caste and community basis and BJP was resorting
it steadily to hide its corrupt practices and to win 2002 elections it
had to do it on much larger scale and with much more intensification. It
needed some event to do that and Godhra incident on 27th February 2002
in which 59 Karsevaks were burnt came handy to the BJP leaders.
The Godhra incident, as you must have known, itself is shrouded in
mystery as to who did it? Was it done by those 120 people arrested by
the Modi Government? The court verdict is not very supportive of
conspiracy theory. The police had made Hussain Umarji as 'chief
conspirator' but court found no evidence against him to declare him
guilty. He was thus discharged by the session court. Some were held
guilty but they were all poor vendors and could hardly plot a conspiracy
to burn one coach of the train. This is not the place to go into those
details. Anyway whosoever was responsible the Modi Government got an
opportunity to provoke riots against Muslims.
The fact that Government of Gujarat joined the bandh and allowed dead
bodies to take out in procession itself is an indictment of Narendra
Modi Government. No Government, worth its salt and interested in keeping
peace would ever allow dead bodies to be taken into procession
irrespective of who claimed the bodies. That is merely a technical
problem. Real question is who gave permission to take the dead bodies
out in the procession through the streets of Ahmedabad causing grave
procession when all sorts of rumours were being spread and people were
already agitated. As a police officer of such high rank you must be well
aware of consequences of such a procession.
For your information Shri Raghavanji I have investigated all the major
riots in this country from Jabalpur in 1961 to the Gujarat riots in 2002
and I am well aware of what government should or should not do when
there is palpable tension in a town or a city. Government immediately
imposes 144 and takes other steps to stop rioting and also tries its
best to counter rumours.
The Modi Government did nothing. The Gujarati newspapers were carrying
highly provocative articles and were publishing, most prominently,
rumours as news and were also writing provocative editorials. You know
there is something like Article 153 (A) in the Cr.P.C. under which
action should have been taken against those newspapers but nothing of
the sort was done and newspapers enjoyed full 'freedom' under the Modi
Government to provoke riots.
You say there is no proof that in the high level officials' meeting Modi
asked them to let Hindus to take out their anger and not to stop them.
Okay though such a firm stands is controversial but even if it was so
Modi is not culpable. But you go a step further and say even if he said
this so what? He said this in a closed door meeting and so he is not
culpable. Raghavanji how can you forget that he was not saying this to
ordinary people in a closed door meeting but to high police and other
officials who were responsible for controlling the riots? In fact it is
worse than saying such a thing in a public meeting.
But it seems you are so keen to defend Narendra Modi that you are not
taking such elementary things into account. And you know what happened
in Gujarat in coming days. You also did not take into account the sting
operation by Tehelka which had completely exposed Modi government how it
had given them assurance of protection after committing heinous crimes
of killing hundreds of innocent people. They also told the person
carrying out sting operation that we were provided all hiding facilities
by the Modi Government.
Sting operation is considered credible evidence in any court and it was
on this basis that former BJP President Shri Bangaru Laxman was
convicted by the Delhi Court. You should have taken sting operation into
account at least for further investigation. Raju Ramchandran, the
amicus curie, is of the opinion that whether Modi gave instruction to
high police officials or not and whether Sanjiv Bhatt was present or
not, should have been investigated further instead of dismissing
Mr.Bhatt's claim. He could have been cross questioned but you did not
consider this worthwhile.
You even found Narendra Modi not anyway responsible for what happened
with Jafri and instead blamed Ehsan Jafri responsible for his death
saying he fired on the mob. It is disputed whether he fired or not and
even if we accept for a moment the theory that he fired on the mob, tell
me Raghavanji who will not try to save himself from such a violent mob
when all your pleas fail? And when no one is ready to come to your
rescue. I have investigated Gujarat riots and found how desperate was
Jafri's position and about 60 other innocent persons who had taken
refuge in his Bungalow. I am not a super cop like you but still possess
certain faculties and can vouch for the position Jafri was in,
Even the People's Panel which was presided by a Supreme Court retired
Judge, Justice Samant and Justice Suresh have falsified your claims.
Both judges are men of known integrity they are, after all, judges and
judge the investigations done by the men of your tribe i.e. the police. I
personally talked to Justice Suresh and he was of the firm opinion that
Narendra Modi was responsible for all that happened in Gujarat in 2002.
Also, in your 2010 closure report prepared by Mr. Malhotra, one of your
colleagues, you had found some problems with Mr. Modi and had blamed him
on some counts. Tahelka the well known fortnightly which is known for
its exposures had published it and that report was closer to truth than
your final one in 2012. Tahelka had also alleged that your to and fro
trip to London for your personal work was paid for by the Gujarat
Government. I do not know whether it is true or not but such an
allegation against you is a serious matter.
I have spoken to many eyewitnesses of Gujarat riots of 2002 from police
officers to victims to members of political parties to survivors of
these riots and all of them have blamed Narendra Modi. I have also heard
Modi's speeches which were video-recorded including the one in which he
justified riots as per Newtonian law of equal and opposite reaction to
action (though reaction in Gujarat by no means was equal but several
hundred times more in number and in brutalities) and the one in which he
calls relief camps as 'Baby-producing Factories'.
These speeches may not constitute hard evidence of his complicity in the
riots but certainly indicate his mentality and his collusion. Apart
from his collusion or not his failure to control riots itself places
great moral responsibility on him. You also must have read in papers
what Mr. A.B.Vajpayee said when he visited Ahmedabad after riots in 2012
that what face will I show when I go abroad and, addressing Modi, he
said you must know your rajdharma i.e. your responsibility for
governance. A chief minister who cannot stop riots for weeks and lets
innocent people be killed in hundreds is not worth continuing. He not
only continues but now takes out sadbhavna yatras.
Raghavanji, such people are not fit for multi-religious democratic
governance who, for the sake of power, do not mind thousands being
killed. We thought you will, as an honest officer, expose such
politicians. But alas we were disappointed.
Yours sincerely,
Asghar Ali Engineer
Chairman
Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
Mumbai
E-mail: csss@mtnl.net.in
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