‘Get details from officers who curbed riots in 2002’

Former DGP and whistleblower officer RB Sreekumar has written a letter to Nanavati-Mehta Commission, saying that the panel should get details from those police officers who had succeeded in curbing violence during the infamous 2002 communal riots.

Sreekumar has said in the letter that police and administrative heads of 11 districts and two cities had succeeded in curbing violence in their jurisdictions in 2002 and the commission should invite the details about the steps taken by them. It would be helpful to the commission while framing recommendations in its report, he says. 

"The media has been reporting that police officers, especially those in charge of districts and commissionerates, have deliberately committed acts of commission and omission to facilitate the state-sponsored anti-minority carnage, following the ghastly Godhra train fire incident on February 27, 2002. But there are laudable exceptions of senior police officers, scrupulously implementing the wisdom enshrined in the regulations on prevention and containment of riots and proper delivery of justice to the riot victims," the former IPS officer states in the letter submitted to the commission on October 25.

He says in the letter: "Of 26 police districts and four commissionerates, in eleven districts _ Amreli, Narmada, Ahwa-Dang, Jamnagar, Navsari, Porbandar, Surat Rural, Valsad, Surendranagar, Rajkot Rural and  Kutch-Bhuj _ there was no death due to riots, whereas the casualties were negligible or lesser than the toll reported in previous communal violence in these places and also Surat and Rajkot commissionerates. In Bharuch, there were two deaths due to violence; in Junagadh two deaths, in Patan four deaths; in Vadodara Rural four deaths; in Bhavnagar two deaths; and in the commissionerate of Rajkot city four deaths."

The former cop says, "The commission may kindly note that most officers in charge of areas where riots were contained effectively received shabby treatment from the state government, including punishment postings and departmental actions, in the post-riot period.  The commission may kindly get information, data, inputs and documents from the commissioners of police of Surat and Rajkot cities, superintendents of police and district magistrates, in whose jurisdiction the communal violence was purposefully controlled and public order was sustained."

He goes on: "The information on the operational strategy, tactics, ground-level methodology, techniques of leadership and motivation and administrative measures, adopted by these officers during the time of protracted 2002 anti-minority bloodbath in Gujarat will be of great relevance to the terms of reference of the commission. Affidavits on the suggested material from IPS officers such as VK Gupta, Manoj Shashidhar, Satish Verma, Narasimha Komar, Vivek Shrivastava, Rahul Sharma, MD Antani, Upendra Singh, Keshav Kumar will be quite relevant and useful. The information on the police officers and district magistrates, in charge of the areas of effective containment of communal violence, may kindly be obtained from the state government."