Zadaphia deposes before Godhra panel
Former Gujarat minister of state for home Gordhan Zadaphia on Friday denied that he had asked the then urban development minister I K Jadeja to sit in the office of the state director-general of police on the fateful Gujarat Bundh day on February 28, 2002.
Replying to questions in a cross-examination before the G T Nanavati–Akshay Mehta judicial inquiry commission probing the Godhra train carnage and the post-Godhra communal riots in the state in 2002, Zadaphia refuted Jadeja’s claim that he was sitting in the DGP’s office not on his own but at the instance of the then minister of state for home.
“I did not issue any such instruction to Jadeja and I do not know who had asked him to stay put at the DGP’s office,” Zadaphia said.
Pointing out that as a minister of state for home he had independent charge of only border security and police housing, while all other issues related to the home ministry including the internal security wrested with Chief Minister Narendra Modi who also held the home portfolio, Zadaphia said he had no knowledge about the state government’s decision to bring the bodies of the train carnage to Ahmedabad.
He said he came to know about the decision later and believed the decision was taken by Modi himself in consultation with the then health minister late Ashok Bhatt who was present in Godhra then.
Zadaphia refuted the state government’s claim that the decision to bring the bodies to Ahmedabad was taken because most of the victims belonged to Ahmedabad.
He claimed he had no knowledge of the chief minister’s high-level meeting with the police officers on the night of February 27, 2002, and two more meetings on the subsequent day. The former minister of state for home reiterated that no instruction was issued by the government to the police to go soft on Hindu rioters.
