JOIN USSIT has failed to bring out the real conspiracy
On these two days, the maximum number of Muslims were killed, ostensibly to avenge the death of 59 karsevaks who had died on February 27, 2002 in the burning S6 coach of Sabarmati Express near the Godhra railway station. The Chief Minister described the massacre that followed the train burning as a “reaction”. However, the deaths of the karsevaks were described as the result of a preplanned terrorist attack and, thus, the stage was set for mobs to take to the streets under the leadership of the sangh parivar activists.
After a decade, the Sadarpura case has been recently decided and 31 accused convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. In this incident, 33 men, women and children were burnt alive in a village called Sardarpura in Mehsana district after they were chased by a mob of around 1,500 people, locked up in a room and burnt alive by dousing the house with inflammable liquid. Forty-two others have been let off, but the surprising finding of the case is that there was no conspiracy behind the killings!
This being one of the nine cases entrusted to the Special Investigation team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court, the question raised is whether the transfer of the investigation from the Gujarat police to the SIT in 2008 has made any difference in delivering justice to the victims.
SIT was entrusted with nine major cases: Godhra train burning, mass murders in Narodagam, Naroda Patiya, Gulberg Society (all three in Ahmedabad), mass murders in Sardarpura, Dipda Darwaja, Prantij and two cases of Ode. The single most gruesome killing was in Naroda Patiya where around 100 men, women and children were burnt alive on February 28, 2002. The massive violence that was unleashed against the Muslims was obviously under a centralised command and plan and except one or two districts, the police either connived or remained passive onlookers.
The State administration had, therefore, started filing their own FIRs through the local police officers, before the actual victims could file their complaints, in order to obscure the truth. A few lines from the FIR in the main Naroda Patiya case are enough to demonstrate the twist that was given to the first information report that is normally the guiding factor to any investigation:
B K Solanki, Police Sub-Inspector, Naroda Police Station, Ahmedabad, states in the FIR that the Karsevaks, who had gone to Ayodhya in connection with construction of Ram Mandir, were returning by train. When the train started from the Godhra station, it was stopped by a mob belonging to the Muslim community, who launched a murderous attack on the Karsevaks and other passengers and set the coaches on fire, killing several women, men and children. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad a called a Gujarat bandh the day after…
The FIR said, on February 28, 2002, during the Gujarat bandh, a mob of 15,000 to 17,000 people led by active workers of VHP and BJP were shouting Maro-Kapo (Kill-Kill) and instigating the mob; the violent mob destroyed, looted and set on fire the S T Patia Nurani Masjid, the nearby Muslim residential area, shops of the Muslim community in front of the Nurani Masjid and in Hussein ni Chali next to the S T Workshop and the Bhagyodaya Hotel near the Thakkarnagar Char Rasta, killing 58 men, women and young children.
The FIR was tailored to justify the killings of the Muslims though unwittingly, it involved the leaders of VHP and BJP. This was one of the reasons that the victims had approached the Supreme Court to seek a transfer of investigation but though the Sardarpura decision does give partial justice to the victims, SIT has failed to bring out the real conspiracy behind the 2002 violence. Suprisingly, SIT could find the “conspiracy” in the Godhra case and get death sentence for eleven accused in the train burning case, but seem to have accepted the reaction theory of the government in all other cases!
(The writer is a civil rights attorney.)
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