Modi sanctioned Gujarat violence: Tehelka probe

NEW DELHI: The Tehelka news magazine on Thursday released sensational footage made by an undercover journalist, in which leaders of Hindu groups alleged that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had sanctioned the communal violence of 2002.

Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal said the investigation was carried out over six months beginning May during which the journalist, Ashish Khetan, went around talking to Hindu activists with a hidden camera.

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He said prominent representatives of the Vishwa Hidnu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal admitted in their conversations that Modi sanctioned the killings in the wake of the February 27, 2002 train burning in Godhra in which 59 Hindu passengers were killed.

Replying to a query on Modi's alleged involvement in the violence, Tejpal said, "There was a strong and tacit approval of what was happening. His sanction was there."

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Reacting to the Tehelka revelations, Gujarat's ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) termed it as 'a political stunt on the eve of assembly elections in the state'. The opposition Congress said there was nothing new in the findings but expressed concern that they could polarise the Hindus and Muslims ahead of the December polls.

The communal violence left more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead and thousands injured and homeless.

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Tehelka's investigative report, telecast on a private television channel and to be published in the magazine on Friday, shows Haresh Bhatt, the BJP legislator from Godhra, saying that Modi had given rioters a free hand for three days.

"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. After three days he asked us to stop and everything came to a halt," Bhatt, a senior VHP functionary then, was quoted as telling the tehelka reporter.

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An accused in the Naroda Patiya massacre, in which more than 80 people were killed on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, told the journalist that Modi had come to the locality and had thanked the rioters saying 'Aap dhanya ho' (you have done a great job).

Describing the expose as the 'most important story of our time', Tejpal said the investigation has brought out irrefutable evidence in several horrific incidents that have remained contested so far.

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These include piercing out of a foetus from the womb of a woman with a sword and killing of Muslims hiding in a gutter.

Tejpal said that Tehelka also had a first-hand account from an accused in the Gulbarga Society massacre in Ahmedabad, explaining how former MP Ehsan Jaffri of the Congress was hacked limb-by-limb and burnt.

The expose also contains details based on the 'confessions' of how dozens of Muslims hiding in a pit and clinging together in fear in Naroda Patiya were doused with kerosene and burnt alive.

Tejpal said, "For the first time, this investigation brings confirmation that the murder of Muslims was not a spontaneous swelling of anger but a planned genocide strategised and executed by top functionaries of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and state authorities, with the knowledge and sanction of Modi."

He claimed the investigation revealed that the train bogey burning incident at Godhra was the result of a spontaneous mob fury by some Muslims in that town and not a pre-planned conspiracy as held by the state government.

"Two BJP members, who claim to be eyewitnesses and have identified many of the 'accused', admit that they were not even at the Godhra station that day. They say the police filed statements on their behalf and they colluded to further the cause of Hindutva," said Tejpal in a statement.

The Tehelka footage also points to the manufacturing of bombs 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," said Tejpal.

The expose also claims to reveal 'the elaborate legal subversion' executed to save those accused for their role in the communal violence.

"There were the cool strategists, leaders, officials, ideologues. And there were the foot soldiers who actually raped, killed and looted. To help these foot soldiers escape the law, the strategists had constituted a panel of lawyers sympathetic to the 'Hindu cause'," said Tejpal.

He said two public prosecutors admitted to the Tehelka reporter how, contrary to their public office, they were secretly defending the 'Hindu accused' and how they try and settle deals between the accused and the survivors.

Asked about the timing of the revelations before the Gujarat elections and whether they would lead to communal polarisation, Tejpal said, "We are not politicians. It has been a journalist's work and his duty was to bring forward the truth."