Sangh Parivar organizations like VHP organized the riots

Fact: Out of Gujarat’s 18,600 villages [there were also 240 towns, and 25 district headquarters], the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had units in 10,000 villages at the time of the riots of 2002. If it had wanted, it could have easily organized retaliatory riots in many of these 10,000 villages. Instead, only 40 out of the state’s 18,600 villages saw riots, and a total of only less than 90 places in the state- towns, villages and cities together saw violence.

The then-powerful VHP General Secretary Dr. Praveen Togadia [who later became Working President, and was later removed from the organization], is a Patel and hails from Saurashtra region of Gujarat- just like Keshubhai Patel. But no riots happened in Saurashtra at all- even in the first 3 days.

On the other hand, the scale of the riots on February 28 in Ahmedabad [and other 25 places] was so large, that no organisation or group of organisations, like the Sangh Parivar could have done it alone. It was a spontaneous mass reaction to the Godhra killings.

Some people have asked- “On one hand you say nothing happened-hardly 40 villages saw riots. On the other hand you say that the riots were so enormous that they could not have been organized by anyone”.

Both these things are simultaneously true. On February 28 in Ahmedabad- there were 17,000 people attacking Muslims in Naroda Patiya area- as per the testimony of the then Police Inspector of the area- K.K. Mysorewala to the Nanavati Commission on 19 Aug 2004 [reported by The Hindu on 20 August 2004]. India Today weekly also reports in its issue dated 18 March 2002 that the Charas had attacked in Naroda Patiya leading 3 mobs of at least 4 to 5 thousand each. At one point of time in Ahmedabad there were at least 50,000 people targeting Muslim localities on 28 Feb 2002. The mob outside Ehsan Jafri’s house was 10,000 strong by the time re-inforcements arrived, and had swelled to above 20,000 by the end.

The SIT says (p 491 of its report) that the mob in Naroda Patiya was 15 to 17 thousand strong, in Naroda Gram was 5 to 7 thousand strong. Though SIT hasn’t clearly mentioned the mob strength at Ehsan Jafri’s place [it may have on p 490 of its report, but that page is not available in public domain, unfortunately], it was clearly above 20,000 as Ehsan Jafri’s widow Zakia Jafri herself said (reported by India Today weekly dated 18 March 2002): “I have never seen such a huge mob. They burnt alive my husband.” The mob strength at these 3 places itself gives us at least 42,000, and there were mobs at various other places in Ahmedabad as well, on 28 February 2002, making the total strength clearly above 50,000.

The police force of 6,000 for Ahmedabad out of which only 1500 were armed and the Rapid Action Force and the CRPF jawans could not control the violence. The Hindu also reported the next day that the situation seemed to slip out of hand. Ahmedabad Police received 3,500 calls instead of the normal 200. It was beyond the means of the Sangh Parivar- or anybody to organise mobs on such a large scale in Ahmedabad within 24 hours.

However, the VHP could have easily organised riots in many of the 10,000 villages in Gujarat where it had units, either on February 28, or days after that.

On February 27 occurred the Godhra massacre. That same day the RSS gave a statement saying- “RSS condemns the killings and calls for restraint”. The Hindu also reported in its report on Feb 28 that the “RSS appealed to the people to exercise restraint”.

The then RSS Joint General Secretary Madan Das Devi said-“Now is the test of the patience of the Hindu society…These killings are a ploy of the terrorists to create riots…”. This was reported in pro-RSS weekly Organiser, but not its official mouthpiece, in its issue dated 10 March 2002, which covered events till 27 February.  In the 10 March 2002 issue itself, two RSS leaders- Madan Das Devi and Mohan Bhagwat gave statement’s asking the Hindu society to maintain peace.

The Telegraph reported on 28th February 2002-

“The RSS rallied behind the Prime Minister, pleading for restraint. Joint general secretary Madan Das Devi said: “The tolerance of the Hindu society is a litmus test. Instead of taking the law into their hands, people should cooperate with the state government in dealing with the serious situation.”

See link:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160106021940/https://www.telegraphindia.com/1020228/front_pa.htm

See the statement by Madan Das Devi in the topic- “Nation faces trial by fire” 9th paragraph from the top. 

The VHP also appealed for peace. The Times of India reported on 28 February 2002 even before a single major riot had taken place: “VHP international Vice-President Acharya Giriraj Kishore told reporters here at Sola Civil Hospital, where 54 out of the 58 bodies of the train attack victims were brought, that: “Hindus should maintain calm and keep patience. I appeal to Muslim brethren to condemn the attack and ask them not to put Hindus’ patience to test. Hindus are keeping a restraint but if such incidents do not stop, there can be a counter reaction which may be uncontrollable”.”

http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=2347298

On 2nd March 2002- www.rediff.com reported quoting Agencies:

“RSS,VHP appeal for peace in Gujarat

In the wake of mounting violence in Gujarat, the RSS and VHP on Saturday appealed to their volunteers to avoid any action that would disturb peace in the country and expressed hope that ‘good sense will prevail’.

“I appeal to all RSS volunteers, sympathisers and friends who have faith in Hindutva to do their utmost in preventing any activity – like sloganeering and stone-pelting – that would disrupt peace, keeping in view the disturbed situation in the country for it would only strengthen the hands of anti-national terrorist elements,” RSS general secretary Mohan Bhagwat said in a statement in Delhi.

He urged followers of other faiths not to fall prey to the instigation of terrorist elements and ‘to conduct themselves as children of India along with their Hindu brethren’.(This statement of Mohan Bhagwat was reported in weekly Organiser in the 10 March 2002 issue. This statement was given on 27 Feb itself).

Meanwhile, the VHP also made an appeal to put an end to the ongoing violence in Gujarat, saying ‘any kind of violence against anyone’ was a matter of concern.

Talking to reporters in Delhi, VHP spokesman Veereshwar Dwivedi said: “The Godhra incident and the violence that followed was tragic. Any kind of violence against anyone is a matter of concern.”

Calling for an end to the ongoing carnage in Gujarat, he said: “Good sense must prevail soon.”

Dwivedi also condoled the deaths and expressed sympathies for those affected by the violence in the state.

He, however, regretted that opposition parties had decided to send a delegation to Gujarat to assess the situation but did not consider it appropriate to do so after the Godhra killings.

Dwivedi said this was being done taking vote bank politics into consideration.

Agencies”

The URL for this is:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/mar/02train10.htm

   On 27 February, The Times of India online reported that the Gujarat VHP appealed to every Hindu to ‘stay indoors’ the next day, i.e. 28 February, the day of the bandh. If all Hindus stayed indoors, it would not be possible for them to retaliate.

To read the full chapter, read the book “Gujarat Riots: The True Story”. 

https://www.amazon.in/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth/dp/1482841649/

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Myth

Narendra Modi said:”Every action has equal and opposite reaction”

FACT: Balbir Punj wrote in Outlook in May 2002- “Blatant myths and fiction have lacerated the facts on Gujarat. The Times of India (March 3) reported Modi’s much-publicised misquote of Newton’s third law—”Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”. In fact, the CM had never said such a thing and no other paper except for Times of India had carried the misquote in its original reportage. But later on, numerous editorials were penned on the basis of this canard. All his denials were thrown in the dustbin…”

Virendra Kapoor wrote in Cybernoon on 19 March 2002-

  “An angry Modi wrote to the English daily, which had first put the quote in his mouth, protesting that he had never met its correspondent nor had he an occasion to say what he had been quoted as having said and that it was only fair that the paper made amends for its wholly ‘inventive reportage.’ The newspaper editors, however, refused to do so and two weeks later were still sitting on Modi’s letter. Left to himself perhaps the paper’s senior-most editor may well have published Modi’s letter but since his writ does not run and the place is teeming with new-fangled journalists who openly talk of blacking out all news about the Sangh Parivar, and the paper’s management is only obsessed with packing nothing other than revenue-earning advertisement in its columns, Modi’s letter has not been published. Modi, therefore, is not entirely wrong in complaining of the bias of the media and the attempt to tar his image. For, the quote in the said paper was immediately recycled and rehashed by the rest of the print and audio visual media.

Inquiries reveal that no one from the paper had met the Gujarat Chief Minister on the day he is supposed to have quoted Newton’s law to its correspondent to justify the revenge killings of the minority community in Ahmedabad and other places in the state. The paper’s editors too have concluded that the said quote was ‘invented’ by the correspondent to indicate ‘the attitude of the Modi government.’ Indeed, it was all a cooked up job to justify what the paper’s deputy bureau chief in New Delhi said at a gathering of secularist scribes to ‘fight the fascist forces and not to give them any space in ‘our’ papers.’

Time the owners woke up to this little upstart who seeks to usurp the ownership of their paper for his own brand of fascism.

Meanwhile, Modi is contemplating taking his complaint to the Press Council of India.”

The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigating Team (SIT) said in its report submitted to the court that there is no evidence at all of Narendra Modi saying “Every action has equal and opposite reaction” and his statements were quoted out-of-context and twisted.

   In an interview to India Today published in its issue of 8 April 2002 Narendra Modi said:

“After the riots began, I was quoted as saying that every action has an opposite reaction. The fact is I never said anything of that kind but one newspaper had a headline that said I had. I later wrote to the editor of the newspaper asserting that I had never said it. The electronic media was there at that press conference of mine. You can check the tapes”.

URL: https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/interview/story/20020408-what-happened-in-godhra-and-afterwards-is-numbing-narendra-modi-795436-2002-04-08

   And in an interview with The Hindustan Times published on 10th March 2002, Narendra Modi said: “I made no statement of that kind. One big newspaper reported that I quoted Newton’s law of every action having an equal and opposite reaction. I have never quoted Newton since I left school. I cannot help if people allow themselves to be guided by their predilections and fantasies. I’m willing to suffer if that helps the society. I plead with those opposed to me to wait till normalcy is restored in Gujarat…”

  The Week dated 12 May 2002 carried an interview with Modi. Parts of it were:

“Q.: Certain comments you made during the course of the Gujarat developments have created much controversy. Do you regret them now?

A.: Many articles have been written on the statements allegedly made by me. But neither have I ever mentioned the name “Newton” nor have I uttered the words “action-reaction”. In spite of sending many letters to the chief editor of The Times of India regarding this, they have not enlightened the masses on this.”

 http://www.hvk.org/2002/0502/23.html

   There are official records available, which show that no one from The Times of India had any appointment with Narendra Modi that day. No one has ever been able to prove that Modi ever uttered these words. Leave alone apologizing, they did not even publish Modi’s denials prominently and properly. Many weeks later, The Times of India published his denial in a remote corner of the paper, while it had carried the false report in its headlines.

Some more details of this issue are given in the book but not in this website.

An important article is on the role of the Gujarat Government in controlling violence in the riots.

To read the full chapter, read the book “Gujarat Riots: The True Story”. 

https://www.amazon.in/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth/dp/1482841649/

   ________________________________________________________________

You can follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/Gujaratriotscom

After numerous requests from readers, we have opened a Facebook page as well, on 17 Feb 2014. You can ‘like’ our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/gujaratriots2002?hc_location=timeline

The photo of Qutubuddin Ansari is genuine

Fact: This photo has been used repeatedly throughout India and the world. The victim, Qutubuddin Ansari, is seen pleading for mercy to the rioters. Many questions that arise (and some of which were raised by the then RSS chief K S Sudarshan [1931-2012] in his speech in Nagpur on 4thOctober 2003), are:

1-A MASSIVE CLUE IS GOT ON THIS PHOTO BEING FAKE (means taken after the incident  by the photographer asking the victim to pose thus, or taken when Ansari was genuinely in such a position but definitely after the incident was over) looking at the bandage on the poor victim’s face. This suggests that after the incident was over, bandage was applied to his face, and then the photo was clicked.  If this photo was clicked with the mob targeting him and he pleading a bloodthirsty mob for mercy, how did he have the time to apply bandage on his face?

2-Also, it seems scarcely believable that the victim is pleading to rioters to spare his life on the first floor of the building, no rioter is seen in the photo, the photographer Arko Dutta was present at that very moment in that building to snap this in his camera and the rioters did nothing to either the photographer or the victim and allowed him to snap such a clear photo of the victim.

3-How and why did the rioters leave him alive and not kill him?

4-How was the photographer allowed to take the photo by the rioters? Why did they not attack him?

5-How, at least, did the rioters not destroy his camera if they would have left both Ansari and the photographer alive?

And  a couple more:

6-Can the photographer, Mr. Arko Datta of the Reuters, explain any of the above questions?

7- Can Mr Ansari answer any of the above questions and other questions which may be raised on this issue?

    Here it must be said that the poor victim Qutubuddin Ansari is reported to have said “This photo was taken after the mob had left my house. The police were there and I was very scared and at this time the photo was clicked”.  This is what has been said by a senior journalist of Gujarat. However, we could not get such a newspaper report available today on the web. But to be fair, we also could not get any report in which Ansari claims to be pleading before a mob to spare his life. So it is possible that Qutubuddin Ansari himself denies that he was pleading to a blood-mercy mob. In this report it is said by a Muslim website itself that he was pleading to security forces (after the mob had left) and not to a blood-thirsty mob.

http://www.indianmuslimobserver.com/2013/02/face-of-gujarat-riots-qutubuddin-ansari.html

Someone must now pin-pointedly ask him about this. If Mr Ansari claims that he indeed was pleading before  a bloodthirsty  mob, then it must be asked to him as to how he had bandage applied on his face. The poor guy is also fed up of the constant use of his photo and harassment and has urged the media to leave him alone many times, starting from as early as August 2003.

We repeat here that we have utmost sympathies for the victim, Mr Qutubuddin Ansari since he was no doubt a victim of the riots.  But that cannot be a license to concoct a fake photo and circulate it the world over instigating innocent people to terrorism.

These are just 2 of the true photos of Godhra victims. Will the media dare to show them worldwide? This section of the media will circulate the fake photo of Qutubuddin Ansari worldwide which is highly inflammatory. The lies of the media have caused many innocent Muslims to turn fanatics. If the Muslims (and also the secular- liberals) had known the guilt of Islam in roasting Hindus in Godhra, and seen the gruesome photos of Godhra, they would not have been needlessly instigated by the post-Godhra riots (which were also not one-sided).

http://www.gujaratriots.com/89/godhra-photos/

An important article is on the role of the Gujarat Government in controlling violence in the riots.

To read the full chapter, read the book “Gujarat Riots: The True Story”. 

https://www.amazon.in/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth/dp/1482841649/

   ________________________________________________________________

You can follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/Gujaratriotscom

After numerous requests from readers, we have opened a Facebook page as well, on 17 Feb 2014. You can ‘like’ our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/gujaratriots2002?hc_location=timeline

Myth

In Ehsan Jafri case, women were raped

Fact: The following is some part of Arundhati Roy’s article in weekly Outlook dated 6 May 2002 on the Ehsan Jafri case:

“Last night a friend from Baroda called. Weeping. It took her fifteen minutes to tell me what the matter was. It wasn’t very complicated. Only that Sayeeda, a friend of hers, had been caught by a mob. Only that her stomach had been ripped open and stuffed with burning rags. Only that after she died, someone carved ‘OM‘ on her forehead…

…A mob surrounded the house of former Congress MP Iqbal Ehsan Jaffri. His phone calls to the Director-General of Police, the Police Commissioner, the Chief Secretary, the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) were ignored. [Our comment: Notice how in this article, as late as May 2002, Arundhati Roy does not claim that Jafri called Modi. All these claims of calls to Police Commissioner, Chief Secretary are incorrect. The SIT examined call records of the Police Commissioner Pandey and found that no call was made by Jafri. And that day, the Chief Secretary was abroad, out of India on leave. But Roy too doesn’t name Modi.] The mobile police vans around his house did not intervene. The mob broke into the house. They stripped his daughters and burned them alive. Then they beheaded Ehsan Jaffri and dismembered him. Of course it’s only a coincidence that Jaffri was a trenchant critic of Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, during his campaign for the Rajkot Assembly by-election in February…”

Outlook  published a rebuttal from a senior functionary of the BJP, the then Rajya Sabha MP Balbir Punj. The following was the reply:

“Fiddling With Facts As Gujarat Burns

“Introduction: The Roys in the media are harming India with half-truths and worse.  ‘(Here Balbir Punj quotes some sentences from Roy’s article dated 6 May, 2002)….’

    That was the Goddess of small things, Arundhati Roy, painting the big picture of Gujarat in Democracy: Who’s She When She’s at Home? (Outlook, 6th May, 2002). Roy sums here neatly almost all the charges against the Sangh Parivar…Read her graphic details—‘The mob broke into the house. They stripped his daughters and burnt them alive’…

   Heart-rending, yes, but honest, no. Jafri was killed in the riots but his daughters were neither ‘stripped’ nor ‘burnt alive’. T.A. Jafri, his son, in a front-page interview titled ‘Nobody Knew My Father’s House was the Target’ (Asian Age, 2nd May, Delhi edition), says, ‘Among my brothers and sisters, I am the only one living in India. And I am the eldest in the family. My sister and brother live in the U.S. I am 40 years old and I have been born and brought up in Ahmedabad.’

   So, Roy is lying—for surely Jafri is not. But what about the hundreds of media lies that haven’t been exhumed as yet? Her seven- page long (approx: 6,000 words) hate charter against India and the Sangh Parivar is woven around just two specific cases of human tragedy, one of which—by now, we know for sure—is a piece of fiction….

   …she terms Gujarat the “petri dish” of the Sangh Parivar. The fact is that Godhra has been used as a crucible by the secular fundamentalists. No wonder, after the roasting of the Ramsevaks, they, while condemning the crime, blamed the victims. Many of them invented events such as a quarrel with hawkers, misbehaviour with women and shouting of provocative slogans to justify the horrendous crime….

   The Sangh Parivar was not there in 1714, nor was it a dominant force during the ’69 and ’85 riots. So, what explains these riots when Gujarat was not a ‘Sangh Parivar petri dish’?…

   …following Godhra, massive spontaneous violence broke out in various parts of Gujarat against the Muslims. Since the rioters were mainly Hindus, they also accounted for about 75 per cent of those who fell to police bullets in the first three days. In fact, till 18th April Hindus accounted for more deaths in police firing than Muslims.

   But for almost three weeks now, the violence has been led by Muslims against Hindus and, naturally, a bulk of the casualties are accounted for by them. The police have booked 34,000 rioters, majority of whom are Hindus.  Both the communities have suffered heavy loss of business and property in the arson and looting. While rioters are communal in picking their targets, looters are not—and they target at random. One lakh Muslims are struggling in relief camps, but so are 40,000 Hindus. This is a horrible riot, which is sad enough, but why call it a genocide? Whom does it help? Not the riot victims, only our enemies across the border…

   Roy (a role model for several in the secular pack) opens her hate charter with the case of a woman named Sayeeda ‘whose stomach was ripped open and stuffed with burning rags’. I heard similar horror stories in the Parliament. The most frequently quoted were the cases of women raped (in some cases, gang-raped), their stomachs ripped open, foetuses taken out and paraded on swords or trishuls. But no one was able to give me even one specific case with all the particulars. Roy gave one, but it proved to be a piece of fiction….

    …the Editor’s Guild came down heavily on the Gujarati press and hailed the role of the English press in coverage of the riots. The former might have been guilty of exaggeration but I am sure it has not concocted stories the way the Roys did in the English media. Surprisingly, the Guild has nothing critical to say on the role of the electronic media and of the Roys, guilty of blackening India’s name, generating more communal hate at a critical time and demonising a section of citizens through half-truths and complete lies. Some rioters may be guilty of rape and should be punished for their heinous crimes, but what about those who have raped the truth and the country in the last two months?”  (URL:  https://www.outlookindia.com/opinion/fiddling-with-facts-as-gujarat-burns-news-215755 )

This really gave the game up. After this, Arundhati Roy wrote “An apology”. The full text of that apology is reproduced here:

“To the Jaffri Family, An Apology

Democracy

In a situation like the one that prevails in Gujarat, when the police are reluctant to register FIRs, when the administration is openly hostile to those trying to gather facts, and when the killings go on unabated—then panic, fear and rumour play a pivotal role. (Note how she blames others for her fault!) People who have disappeared are presumed dead, people who have been dismembered and burnt cannot be identified, and people who are distraught and traumatized are incoherent. So even when those of us who write try and use the most reliable sources, mistakes can happen.

But in an atmosphere so charged with violence, grief and mistrust, its important to correct mistakes that are pointed out.

There is a factual error in my essay Democracy: Where’s she when she’s at home? (May 6). In describing the brutal killing of Ehsan Jaffri, I have said that his daughters had been killed along with their father. It has subsequently been pointed out to me that this is not correct. Eyewitness accounts say that Ehsan Jaffri was killed along with his three brothers and two nephews. His daughters were not among the 10 women who were raped and killed in Chamanpura that day.

I apologise to the Jaffri family for compounding their anguish. I’m truly sorry.

My information (mis-information, as it turned out) was cross-checked from two sources. Time magazine (March 11) in an article by Meenakshi Ganguly and Anthony Spaeth; and “Gujarat Carnage 2002: A Report to the Nation” by an independent fact-finding mission which included K.S. Subrahmanyam, former IGP Tripura, and S.P. Shukla, former finance secretary. I spoke to Mr Subrahmanyam about the error. He said his information at that time came from a senior police official. (What was the name of the senior police official? Neither Subrahmanyam nor Arundhati Roy reveal it!)

This and other genuine errors in recounting the details of the violence in Gujarat in no way alters the substance of what journalists, fact-finding missions, or writers like myself are saying.”

The link is: https://web.archive.org/web/20121019185435/http://www.outlookindia.com/feedbacks.aspx?typ=100&val=215477&source=published&commentid=27001#27001

Years later, Balbir Punj wrote in Organiser dated 9 July 2006:

“Some four years ago I had a clash in print with Arundhati Roy. The occasion was the Gujarat riots that had come as a windfall to ‘secular’ brigade’s publicity campaign. Those ‘secularists’ are no where visible, not even with a telescope, when Hindus are killed in Doda...

Roy had begun her charter of hate with another damning description: “Last night a friend from Baroda called. Weeping. It took her fifteen minutes to tell me what the matter was. It wasn’t very complicated. Only that Sayeeda, a friend of hers, had been caught by a mob. Only that her stomach had been ripped open and stuffed with burning rags. Only that after she died, someone carved ‘OM’ on her forehead”.

Shocked by this despicable “incident”, I got in touch with the Gujarat government. The police investigations revealed that no such case, involving someone called Sayeeda, had been reported either in urban or rural Baroda. Subsequently, the police sought Roy’s help to identify the victim and seek access to witnesses who could lead them to those guilty of this crime. But the police got no cooperation. Instead, Roy, through her lawyer [He was Prashant Bhushan], replied that the police had no power to issue summons. Thus she hedged behind technical excuses. I took up this incident in my rejoinder published as Dissimulation In Word and Images (The Outlook, July 8, 2002).”

See link:

https://web.archive.org/web/20061010214448/http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=138&page=8

Here we must mention some things which even Balbir Punj did not say. This apology is also false, since Roy claims that 10 women were raped and killed that day. In reality, after reading the then English newspapers in the first week of March 2002, one finds no mention of any rapes at all. These stories of rape started coming out in the middle of March 2002, after Time magazine concocted lies in its issue of 11 March 2002, copied by Arundhati Roy. Neither Roy nor the Time correspondent can point out any proven rapes in this case. Roy also apologizes only to the Jafri family, not to the BJP or Narendra Modi for defaming them by her incorrect claim. She should also have done that. And she should also have apologized to the country. Note how, while giving the apology, Roy makes sure that it is only “To the Jafri family”.

   Second incorrect claim by Roy: The police did nothing to stop the mob in Jafri’s house. Roy says, “His phone calls to the Director-General of Police, the Police Commissioner [i.e. P C Pande], the Chief Secretary, the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) were ignored. The mobile police vans around his house did not intervene.” In reality, police outside his house not only intervened, they shot dead five rioters outside his house and saved the lives of 180 Muslims at a great risk to their own personal life. They lathi-charged the mob, fired 124 rounds and burst 134 tear gas shells at the spot, killed 4 Hindus and injured 11, as per the SIT report, page 1. The Times of India also reported online that the police and fire brigade did their best to disperse rioters and nowhere did it allege any inaction on the part of police.

   All these claims of calls to the Police Commissioner, Chief Secretary are false. The SIT examined call records of the Police Commissioner Pandey and found that no call was made by Jafri [on pages 203-04], though Pandey made/received 302 calls on that day, i.e. 28 February 2002. And that day, the Chief Secretary G Subbarao was abroad, out of India on leave as stated in the SIT report, on page 312, so how could Jafri have called him?

  Jafri’s widow Zakia Jafri also said in her statement to the Police, recorded under Section 161 of CrPC on 6 March 2002 that the police saved her and many others. It was impossible for the police to control the mob of around 10,000+ people and the mob had gone crazy after Jafri fired from his revolver on the crowd, which injured 15 Hindus and killed 1- as per the SIT report on page 1.

   But they managed to disperse the mob by 8 PM on 28 February- according The Times of India’s online report at 9:41 PM published the same day. And nowhere did The Times of India accuse the police of not doing anything. On the contrary, it said that the furious mob, gone crazy by Jafri firing on it, did not allow fire tenders to reach the house. And this Times of India report POSTED ONLINE at 2:34 PM of 28 February also says that police fired on the crowd injuring 6, who were taken to hospital where 3 were critical at that time, and ultimately 5 died.

The Human Rights Watch in its report quotes 38 year old Mehboob Mansoori, a witness who lost 18 from his family at Gulbarg Society as saying: “Early in the day at 10:30 the police commissioner came over and said don’t worry. He spoke to Jaffrey and said something would work out then left. The name of the commissioner of police that visited in the morning is P.C. Pandey, commissioner of police Ahmedabad…”

Actually the testimony of this witness is a poorly constructed story. S K Modi in his book “Godhra: The Missing Rage” had quoted this story and completely dismantled it. But even he mentions that P C Pande visited the place at 10:30 AM.But the SC-appointed SIT has dismissed this claim after talking to P C Pandey and examining all evidence and said that instead it was Congress Mahamantri Ambalal Nadia who came to meet Jafri at Gulbarg Society at 10 AM and left 10:30 AM. The SIT has said in its report on page 201 that: “It is established conclusively that Shri P C Pandey did not visit Gulbarg  Society in the forenoon of 28 Feb”.

Note here that Roy does not claim that Jafri telephoned the Chief Minister Narendra Modi as late as May 2002. Now- lies are out that Jafri actually phoned Modi as was abused by Modi on phone! For full truth of this lie, read Myth 23.

The Times of India in its online edition on 28 February 2002 reported at 2:34 PM :

“Ahmedabad: At least six persons were injured when police opened fire to disperse a rampaging mob in Meghaninagar area of the city on Thursday afternoon. The injured were brought to civil hospital where the condition of at least three is stated to be serious…the incident took place at Chamanpura area under Meghaninagar police station…”

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com//india/Police-open-fire-in-Ahmedabad-6-hurt/articleshow/2360713.cms

That is, as early as 2:34 PM itself police had injured 6 outside Ehsan Jafri’s house and actually 5 were killed in their firing and 11 injured. This despite the hopeless situation, which is clear from reading The Times’ report that Fire Brigade and Police were not allowed to be reached by the mob. Though police gained control only after 8 PM- they fired much before that- before 2 PM and saved 180+ Muslims.

We quote from Times of India online edition 28 Feb night at 9:41 PM “Meanwhile fire tenders which rushed to the spot (Chamanpura- Ehsan Jafri case) were turned back by the irate mob which disallowed the Ahmedabad Fire Brigade (AFB) personnel and the district police from rushing to rescue…Sources in Congress Party said that the former MP after waiting in vain till 12.30 pm for official help to arrive had opened fire on the mob in self-defense, injuring four..”. Thus the Police and the Fire Brigade ‘rushed to the rescue’ and did not indulge in neglect of duty.

A section of the media hid from the public for many years that a top accused in this case was none other than Congress leader Meghsingh Chaudhary himself. He was arrested not by Gujarat police, but by the SC-appointed SIT itself in 2009. One link:  http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-03-26/subverse/28032145_1_religious-symbols-religion-and-politics-gulbarga-society

The National Commission for Women in its report stated that the media needlessly exaggerated the plight of women victims of the communal carnage. The NCW team visited Gujarat on 10, 11 and 12 April 2002. On 22nd April 2002, Tehelka’s website said–“Nafisa Hussain, a member of the NCW, has gone on record saying that several organisations and the media have needlessly blown out of proportion the violence suffered by minority women in the communal riots of Gujarat.”

This incidentally also exposes Prashant Bhushan as a liar, and an accomplice-in-crime of Arundhati Roy. He too knew that that story by Arundhati Roy was concocted and not true, but he defended Arundhati Roy on some technical excuse.

More details of this issue are given comprehensively in the book, but not in this website. A special chapter on the SIT report is also in the book, which reveals the whole truth and the SIT’s observations.

To read the full chapter, read the book “Gujarat Riots: The True Story”. 

https://www.amazon.in/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth/dp/1482841649/

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Myth

Gujarat became a dangerous place to live in, in 2002

Fact: The opinion poll by the weekly India Today in its issue dated 25 November 2002 asked a question to its respondents- “Do you feel secure living in Gujarat today?” in which about 68 % people including about 56 % Muslims felt secure.

   While commenting on the entire poll, India Today reported, “Voters have rallied solidly behind the chief minister’s aggressive posturing. They have endorsed his view of the riots being a reaction to Godhra. They approve his fulmination against outsiders who have vilified the state. And they contemptuously dismiss all suggestions that Gujarat has become a dangerous place to live in.”

To see the full India Today report see this link:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100613182633/http://archives.digitaltoday.in/indiatoday/20021125/cover2.html

The newspaper editors lied along with 24-hour TV news channels like NDTV that the whole of Gujarat was burning. Living outside Gujarat and lying about the state, their lies did not go well with the masses.

To read the full chapter, read the book “Gujarat Riots: The True Story”. 

https://www.amazon.in/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth/dp/1482841649/

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You can follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/Gujaratriotscom

After numerous requests from readers, we have opened a Facebook page as well, on 17 Feb 2014. You can ‘like’ our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/gujaratriots2002?hc_location=timeline

Myth

Gujarat riots were like the 1984 anti-Sikh riots

Fact: There was a contrast of day and night in these two riots.

The next chapter will comprehensively point out the differences between the Gujarat riots and the 1984 riots. In 1984, the Sikhs were butchered. In 2002, Muslims attacked Hindus and as many as at least 254 Hindus were killed in the Gujarat riots, after the Godhra massacre. In 1984, riots occurred outside New Delhi, including places like West Bengal, Tripura, while not a single riot occurred outside Gujarat in 2002.

In 1984, officially 3,000 Sikhs were killed. Not a single Congressman was killed in 1984 riots (except Indira Gandhi) while as many as 313+ Hindus were killed in Gujarat in 2002 AD, including 59 karsevaks killed in Godhra.

Not even one person was killed in 1984 in police firing in Delhi, according to ex-DGP B P Singhal, while 199 people were killed in police firing in the Gujarat riots of 2002 AD. This writer later read reports that one person was killed in police firing in Delhi.

   India Today (then fortnightly) dated 30 November 1984 said that 11 were killed in police or Army firing in Madhya Pradesh state in the 1984 riots. The Nanavati Commission which submitted its report on the 1984 riots mentioned on page 2: “It (Ranganath Mishra Commission appointed to probe these riots) also found that there was delay on the part of Delhi Administration i.e. the Lt. Governor and the Commissioner of Police in calling the Army, though about 5,000 Army men were available by mid night of October 31 [1984, the day Indira Gandhi was assassinated].”

40,000 Hindus were living in refugee camps in Gujarat, while not even a single relief camp was organized for the Sikhs in 1984, not to talk of any Congressman needing to live in refugee camps, as per ex-Director General of Police, B P Singhal. Not only was there a huge difference in the nature of the riots- there was also a huge difference in the government handling of the riots.

There are many more details of these contrasts. For full details of these contrasts- see the next chapter. Click on the link:

https://gujaratriots.com/gujaratriots/news/chapter-05-contrasts-between-1984-and-gujarat-2002-riots/

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The Gujarat government was involved in the riots

Fact: The full details of the role of the government in controlling violence can be seen by opening the link.

Gujarat government of the BJP, headed by Narendra Modi (from 7 October 2001 onwards till the time of the Godhra carnage on 27 Feb 2002) was blind to the mushrooming of madrasas in the state. Not only that, the previous government headed by Keshubhai Patel (from March 1998 to 7 October 2001) too was equally blind to the same. From India Today we know that it was because of fear of harming the BJP’s newly discovered ‘secular’ image that the party did nothing to control the madrasas. It reported in its issue of 18th March 2002: 

   “The general perception is that this was the venting of a latent anti-Muslim sentiment fostered by the unchecked activities of radical Islamic schools in the state. Being debated just as hotly is the question of why the authorities failed to check the blood-letting. Was it because the BJP feared its new-found secular image would suffer if it came down heavily on the fundamentalists? Or was it plain administrative inefficiency?”

   So, the BJP did not want to risk losing its ‘secular’ image. Maybe even if there was no such fear, the government would have been neutral and efficient in dealing with riots. But with the NDA allies at stake, a Central Government at stake, ‘secular’ image at stake, and the powerful electronic media which was hostile, BJP Government of Gujarat was definitely determined to prevent riots.

The Gujarat government had to face the most difficult situation in trying to control the post-Godhra riots. That’s because Gujarat is an extremely communally sensitive state and often even minor things like kite flying and cricket matches are enough to cause riots.

To understand this issue fully we have already seen the horrific massacre in Godhra carried out on February 27. Gujarat has along history of communal violence-dating from 1714 AD and in the recent past saw horrible riots in the pre-Independence period of the 1940s and then again riots after Independence. The Times of India in its issue dated 13 April 2002 carried a report saying- “Trivial reasons sparked earlier riots” and begins with the sentence–

“If it took a shocking massacre like Godhra to trigger off massive communal riots in the state in the 21st century, history shows that trivial incidents caused most riots in the 20th century…”

Now the situation was far worse in February 2002- after the gruesome killings in Godhra. But the Godhra killings were not the only cause. At that time, in 2002, there were war clouds between India and Pakistan following the attack on Parliament. There was great anger in Gujarat over terrorism and anti-national activity and over the growth of madarsas. Added to that was the Godhra incident and the rubbing of salts into people’s wounds after Godhra by the Leftist media and politicians.

The Telegraph, published from Kolkata, also reported on 1st March 2002: “(On Feb 28)  “There is a fire inside us. Our blood is boiling,” Mangalben, a woman from Dariapur, said. “What is the fault of those children who died? There is a volcano of anger.””

In other words-there was a volcano of anger among the masses, whose blood was boiling after the Muslims brutally roasted 59 kar sewaks including 15 children in Godhra.

Steps taken on February 27 (Wednesday)

On 27th February 2002 occurred the Godhra carnage at around 8 AM.

In brief, the steps taken on 27 February (Wednesday) were:

1)  The Gujarat Chief Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, rushed from Ahmedabad to Godhra and gave shoot-at-sight orders and imposed curfew at 9:45 am as reported by the English dailies at that time.

Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2256789.cms

2) The entire police force of 70,000 was deployed in Gujarat as reported by The Hindustan Times the next day as well as The Telegraph (UK).

3)  All companies of Rapid Action Force in the state were deployed in Ahmedabad, Godhra and other sensitive areas by the state government as reported by The Indian Express and Mid-Day on 28 Feb. Weekly Outlook, whose then Editor-in-chief Vinod Mehta was a very pro-Congress man at that time, also reported this online on 27 Feb.

http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?214725 (Paragraph 8 of this report).

4) The Central Government rushed CRPF personnel to Gujarat, as reported by The Indian Express and Mid-Day both the next day. The Gujarat Government had requested the Centre to send 10 companies of CRPF personnel as reported by The Times of India.

5) The state government imposed curfew in Godhra at 9:45 am- within 2 hours of the Godhra carnage and in other sensitive areas.

6) 827 preventive arrests were made. Narendra Modi said this in an interview to India Today dated 18 March 2002. India Today of 18 March 2002 admitted preventive arrests without specifying the number. Even the SIT appointed by known anti-Modi judges of the SC like Aftab Alam and Arijit Pasayat admitted 827 preventive arrests.

7)  The Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the Gujarat Government urged Hindus not to retaliate and maintain peace.

Narendra Modi talked to TV channels in Godhra on 27 Feb evening and urged people to maintain peace and not retaliate. NARENDRA MODI HIMSELF MADE AN APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE TO MAINTAIN PEACE IN AN APPEAL BROADCAST ON NATIONAL TV (DOORDARSHAN) ON 28 FEBRUARY AFTERNOON.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIRMR8zW0iI

8)  The RSS and VHP also appealed to Hindus to maintain peace and not retaliate. The RSS appeal was reported by The Telegraph, The Hindu along with weekly Organiser in its issue of 10 March 2002 covering events till 27 Feb (See detailed RSS statement later in Myth 14 and Chapter 2). The VHPs appeals were reported by The Times of India. Gujarat VHP leaders urged ‘Every Hindu to stay indoors the next day i.e. 28 Feb’ while VHP Senior Vice-President Acharya Giriraj Kishore said ‘Hindus should maintain calm and keep patience’.

9) CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) units were also deployed as reported by PTI.

10) The Centre sounded a nationwide alert in the evening as reported by The Indian Express the next day i.e. 28 Feb.

The Daily Breeze, a US newspaper, reported on 28 February quoting The Associated Press:

“Fearing the attack (Godhra train roasting) would ignite sectarian riots, Indian officials immediately stepped up security across this vast, religiously divided nation. The prime minister urged Hindus not to retaliate.”

One link: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1774&dat=20020228&id=Z4UeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=w38EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6789,2011702

Even Xinhua news agency also reported this online on 27 February 2002– that Vajpayee appeals for peace.

These were the steps taken by the Gujarat Government on February 27 itself to quell the violence- or prevent the violence. But on February 28, large –scale riots happened. That was due to the extreme anger of the masses over Godhra, the reaction from the media and politicians on it, and great anger over terrorism and anti-national activity.

On February 28 (Thursday)

Now-the government faced genuine difficulties in controlling the anger of the masses in view of the limited police force. India Today dated 18 March 2002 reported:

“Ahmedabad has a police force of 6,000, including 1,500 armed personnel. In addition, the entire state has just four companies (530 jawans) of the Rapid Action Force (RAF) of which only one company could be spared for Ahmedabad. Considering that the mobs that simultaneously surfaced at nearly half a dozen places (on 28 Feb) numbered from 2,000 to 10,000, the forces proved woefully inadequate. At one point on February 28 there were at least 25,000 people targeting the Muslim localities in Ahmedabad alone…

Last Thursday (i.e. Feb 28), the Ahmedabad police received at least 3,500 calls for help from fear-stricken residents, mostly Muslims, against the normal average of 200. The fire brigade which has the capacity to handle 100 fire calls received 400 calls on February 28. Says Ahmedabad Police Commissioner P.C. Pande: “In my 32-year career I have never seen something like this. It was an upsurge, unstoppable and unprecedented. A stage came when it became physically impossible for the police to tackle mobs running into thousands.”

The Hindu also reported the next day that mob fury reached its crescendo on 28 February 2002. The Times of India reported on 2nd March 2002- “Neither the Army nor the shoot-at-sight orders given to the Gujarat police could control the mob frenzy in Ahmedabad on Friday (1st March 2002) as the city witnessed a total collapse of the law and order machinery for the second straight day taking a heavy toll of human lives…”

And this was on 1st March- when the violence was much less as compared to 28 February. If even the Army and shoot-at-sight orders couldn’t control violence when it was much less, what must have been the situation on 28 February- when the Army was not present during the day and the violence was far more?

But the state government dealt with the situation firmly, harshly and effectively.

In brief, the steps taken on 28 February were:

1) The riots began in Ahmedabad at 11 AM. India Today dated 18 March 2002 reported that the Chief Minister Narendra Modi informally contacted the Central Government to send Army at 12 noon – i.e. within 1 hour in an article titled ‘Chronology of a Crisis’. Curfew was imposed by 12:20 at noon at all places and at some places right since morning, even before the riots began from the reports of The Times of India of 28 Feb.

2) As per the report of The Hindu the next day– Narendra Modi “frantically” called the Army units to Gujarat on 28 February.

3) Narendra Modi requested the Union Defence Minister George Fernandes to come to Gujarat as reported by The Indian Express & Times of India the next day as well as India Today.

4) Curfew was imposed in 26 towns and cities in Gujarat as reported by all English dailies the next day and weeklies Outlook and India Today both in their issues dated 11 March covering events till 28 February.

5)  There were around 250 people in the housing complex of Ehsan Jafri and the mob killed 69, with the police saving about 200 Muslims despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered by the mob, which was 10,000 strong and the crowd going mad by Jafri’s firing. Police shot dead 5 Hindus outside his house as reported by India Today dated 18 March 2002 and Times of India online of 28 February. The Times’ report at that time said 6 were injured of whom at least 3 were critical and 5 died ultimately.

6)  The police fired at least 1,000 rounds (Exact number 1496) in the state including at least 600 in Ahmedabad. These are the official statistics.

7) The police shot dead 10 Hindus in Ahmedabad and injured 16. These are official records and can also be seen from the report of The Hindu the next day where it said:

“At least 30 others were killed in police firing, stabbing and other incidents in different parts of the city while the casualty in other cities and towns in the State was put at over 50…Till evening, police fired 46 rounds in Ahmedabad, in which at least 10 persons were believed to have been killed.” 

In fact, the BBC reported online on 28 February when the death toll reported by it was a mere 40 for the entire state of Gujarat i.e. when violence was going on-“The army has been deployed there (Ahmedabad) to counter Hindu youths…They included six people who were shot dead by police in Ahmedabad as they tried to restore calm. (Final figure was 10)”

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1845996.stm

At least 2 were shot dead outside Ahmedabad in Nadiad and Godhra as reported by The Telegraph (Kolkata) the next day.

8) Gujarat Government requested Army deployment within 1 hour. At 4 PM- a press conference was held- in which this decision was publicly announced. All procedures needed for this were done very quickly- Cabinet meeting of Central Government was held at 6:45 PM, it approved Army deployment and Army units reached Ahmedabad after midnight from India Today‘s article Chronology of a Crisis as well as The Indian Express’ report online of 28 Feb.

9)  The Army units reached Ahmedabad so quickly that newspapers like The Hindu, The Indian Express had time to report their arrival on 28 February 2002 (Thursday) itself and publish it on 1st March 2002 (Friday)!

10)  Defence Minister George Fernandes reached Ahmedabad so quickly that newspapers like The Indian Express reported his arrival the next day!

11) Police escorted 400 Muslims to safe areas and gave them accomodation in Naroda Patiya after dispersing the mob in Naroda Patiya as reported by The Times of India. Total of 95 people were killed- at least 900 Muslims were saved, since The Times of India reports that 1,000 Muslims lived in the attacked area in Naroda Patiya.

12) The Gujarat Government requested neighbouring states to send additional police force. All these states were ruled by the Congress. Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan did not send. Only Maharashtra sent a mere 260 personnel.

13)700 people were arrested by the police in the state, including around 80 in Godhra on the very first day of the violence when situation was out of control as reported by The Tribune the next day. The official statistics show that 4297 tear gas shells were also burst, i.e. nearly 4300 tear gas shells burst in the whole state.

Nowhere was it alleged that the police deliberately turned a blind eye to the rioting. No mention of police being involved in the violence or giving a free hand to the rioters. No mention of any delay in calling the Army. These charges of “Police turning a blind eye, allowing killings for 3 days, not calling Army until 3 days had passed…etc” were made after the riots. If these charges were true- the newspapers would have screamed and gone downtown on the very next day. Nothing like this happened. And- no charge that the riots were being ‘sponsored’ by the Gujarat Government!

On March 1 (Friday)

The Hindu reported on 2nd March 2002-“ (On 1st March) The Army began flag marches in the worst-affected areas of Ahmedabad, Baroda, Rajkot and Godhra cities and the `shoot at sight’ order was extended to all 34 curfew-bound cities and towns in Gujarat”.

On this day- the violence was much less as compared to 28 February (Thursday). And also the Muslims started a backlash on this day, according to The Hindu dated 2nd March 2002 which reported “But unlike Thursday (Feb 28) when one community was entirely at the receiving end, the minority backlash (On Friday, 1 March) caused further worsening of the situation.”

The steps taken were:

1) On morning of 1st March, George Fernandes bravely took to streets to check violence in Ahmedabad, at a great risk to personal life. He was pummeled with stones. Later he left for Vadodara as reported by The Times of India which praised him, but not Modi who called him in the first place.

2) 24 Hindus were shot dead by police and 40 injured-these are official records. The Indian Express reported on 2nd March-“The police, its credibility lowest than ever, tried to salvage its reputation intervening in some clashes by opening fire. Twenty were killed in police firing across the state, 12 in Ahmedabad.”

There are two things to be noted from this very vital statement. First- the police did their best to control the violence and could not be accused by anyone, even The Indian Express of negligence from this day onward- the second day of the riots i.e. 1st March 2002. And second, there were “clashes” going on between Hindus and Muslims- not one sided massacres of Muslims.

The Indian Express reported on 2nd  March, 2002: “(On 1st  March) Tension escalated in the walled city areas just before the Friday prayers. There were violent clashes between mobs in Jamalpur, Bapunagar and Rakhial.” Clearly, Muslims were on the offensive. And The Times of India also reported the same day: “There were signs of retaliation in areas like Juhapura, Kalupur, Dariapur and Shahpur….”  This clears all possible doubts.

The slight difference in the number of people killed in police firing as per official records and this report is because many injured were alive when The Indian Express wrote this, and died later, so the number of killed in police firing increased. And also, The Indian Express could have deliberately kept the number of people killed lower than the true figure due to its horrible anti-Narendra Modi and anti-BJP bias, though that seems unlikely in this case.

3) The Army staged flag marches in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot’s worst affected areas as reported by The Hindu the next day.

The website www.indianembassy.org reports:

“The next brigade of the Army was also deployed in Rajkot and Vadodara on 1 March 2002 itself. Three columns allotted to Godhra reached in Godhra, Lunawada and Halol on the early morning of 2 March 2002.

Thereafter the Army has been shifted in Surat and Bhavnagar as and when the situation warranted such a shift.”

URL: http://www.indianembassy.org/new/gujarat_02/index.htm

4) Shoot-at-sight orders were extended to all 34 curfew-bound cities and towns in the state.

5) 2500 (Two thousand five hundred) Muslims were saved in Sanjeli, a town in North Gujarat from a crowd of 8000 armed tribals by the police as reported by India Today dated 22 April 2002.

Official records show that people were also saved at other places- date not known to this writer. There are many other instances as well. Some of them are:

  1. 5000 people from the Noorani Mosque area were saved by Ahmedabad Police
  2. 240 people were saved at Sardarpura of Mehsana district and shifted to safer places
  3. 450 were saved in Pore and Nardipur villages of Gandhinagar district and shifted to safer places
  4. 400 were saved in a Madrasa at Bhavnagar
  5. 1,500 were saved at Fatehpura village of Vadodara district
  6. 3,000 people were saved and shifted from Kwan village of Vadodara district

On March 2 (Saturday)

2nd March 2002 was Saturday. On this day also Muslims were aggressive. Ahmedabad was almost completely peaceful on this day, with major violence occurring in other parts of Gujarat. The police brought the situation under control there and fired on pitched battles between Hindus and Muslims. The Tribune reported on 3rd March 2002 that:

“Ahmedabad, the worst hit by the communal flare-up in the wake of Godhra train killings, was virtually back to normal…”

That is, the Gujarat Government managed to control riots in the state in 3 days after Godhra, and in only 2 days in a communally ultra-sensitive place like Ahmedabad! Reports of The Hindu and The Telegraph of 3rd March 2002 also prove that Ahmedabad was virtually back to normal on 2nd March 2002 itself.

Thus, in brief, the steps taken on 2nd March 2002 were:

1) The police fired more than 1031 rounds and burst 1614 tear gas shells.More than this, because this was the figure till the evening after which more were fired.

2) As per the report of The Hindu– at least 47 people were shot dead by the police in Gujarat- 19 in Ahmedabad, 8 in Godhra, 6 in Vadodara, 5 in Anand, 3 each in Mehsana and Gandhinagar, 2 in Kaira and 1 in Bhavnagar.

As per The Indian Express the next day, 77 people were killed in either police or Army firing.

3) Curfew was imposed in 40 places in Gujarat as per The Hindu.

4) Border Security Force units were dispatched to Surat as reported by The Hindu.

5) 2000 Muslims (Two thousand) were saved in Dahod by the Police.

The efforts of Narendra Modi to control the violence can be clearly seen from India Today weekly dated 18 March 2002 in an article titled “Chronology of a Crisis”.

“FEB 27, 2002

8.03 AM: Incident at Godhra claims lives of 57 kar sevaks

8.30 AM: Modi is informed of the carnage. (This could be 9 AM).

4.30PM: Gujarat Assembly adjourned and Modi visits Godhra where he holds a meeting, giving shoot-at-sight orders to the police.

10.30PM:CM holds meeting with senior government officials at Gandhinagar; orderscurfew in sensitive places and pre-emptive arrests.

FEB 28, 2002

8.00 AM: Special control room set up in CM’s house to monitor the situation during VHP bandh.

12.00 PM:Modi informally contacts Centre for calling in army. Cabinet Secretary T.R. Prasad tells Defence Secretary Y. Narain that army is to be mobilised.

12.30PM: Vice-Chief of Army Staff Lt-General N.C. Vij tells Narain that only twocolumns are available as the rest are deployed on the border.

12.35 PM: Prasad directs Narain to advise Chief of Army Staff Gen Padmanabhan to have troops ready due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Ahmedabad.

12.45PM: Narain tells Vij to arrange immediate movement of troops to Gujarat.

4.00PM:Modi requests army deployment following consultations with Advani.

6.45PM: Cabinet Committee on Security meets under the prime minister’s chairmanship;approves the immediate movement of troops to Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujarat. Vajpayee deputes Fernandes to supervise the deployment of troops.

7.00PM:The Gujarat Government’s formal request for army deployment is received in Delhi.

11.30 PM: Airlifting of troops begins.

MARCH 1, 2002

2.30 AM: A brigade reaches Ahmedabad. The 54th Division’s General Officer Commanding contacts acting Chief Secretary.

9.00AM: Discussions between representatives of the army and the state take place, followed by troop flag march in Ahmedabad.”

Reports from the English media (at that time biased against Hindus and BJP) also proved that the real riots had stopped in the first three days. Not just that, the media knew it fully well. The following report from The Hindu dated 4th March 2002 will make it clear:

“AHMEDABAD, MARCH 3. The orgy of violence in Gujarat appears to have ended. Today only two deaths were reported, one from Godhra. Officially the death roll is 431, more than half of them in Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad was quiet, apart from two major arson attacks on a Muslim-owned petrol station and warehouse.

Curfew has been lifted in most areas of the 40 towns and cities where clashes were reported, including Naroda and Meghnaninagar (i.e. Gulmarg Society case) in Ahmedabad, where hundreds were killed. The state administration says that curfew will be relaxed in more areas tomorrow. There was a `sense of normality in the State’ today.

But, the smouldering remains of burnt-out buildings and the acrid smell of burning rubber, five days after the violence began, are a reminder that `normality’ in Ahmedabad is a very long way off.”

URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/03/04/stories/2002030403090100.htm

This newspaper report clearly proves that the government claim of controlling the riots in 72 hours was absolutely true.

   After 3rd March 2002, the riots were mostly all instigated and started by the Muslims and they were limited only to Ahmedabad, Vadodara and some places near Godhra in Panchmahal district.

  Like in Sanjeli where 2,500 Muslims were saved, 5,000 Muslims were also saved in Bodeli, a town in Vadodara district, from a crowd of over 7,000. The following is another report quoted from India Today dated 8 April 2002:

“When a Muslim woman was burnt alive by Hindu zealots, (in Viramgam, not far from Ahmedabad) the minorities, who constitute almost 30 % of the 70,000-odd population went on the rampage. Soon, nearly 15,000 Hindus from nearby villages encircled Viramgam and targeted the Muslim localities in the town. It took some deft handling by the police and the Army to save the day.”

And in the 22 April issue India Today said-

“…Take Sanjeli. In the carnage that ensued after the February 27 Godhra killings, 8,000 armed tribals descended on the town of 8,000 in the tribal heartland of Dahod district. Bows, stones and gunshots rained on the fleeing Muslims, killing 15. Police intervention meant another 2,500 were spared a savage death … In an identical display of insanity, around 7,000 armed tribals marched into Bodeli town in Chotte-Udepur tribal area of Vadodara district intent on massacring the Muslims who had taken shelter there after being driven out of the neighbouring villages. While hundreds were saved by the police, Vadodara District Collector Bhagyesh Jha and other senior officers were fired upon by tribals as they tried to rescue the trapped Muslims.

Tragedy was also averted by the police and army at Viramgam town near Ahmedabad where over 15,000 Hindus, mostly armed OBC Thakores, burnt 250 Muslim houses…”

http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20020422/states.shtml

That is to say, the Gujarat police and the Indian Army together saved thousands of Muslims, of the 21,000-odd of the town. If we assume that there was no police or Army presence, 10,000 Muslims of the town may have been killed. On the basis of records available to this writer, we can conclusively say that the Gujarat Police saved at least 17,500 Muslims in Gujarat. As a matter of fact, many sources have told this writer that the Gujarat Police saved 24,000 Muslims in the state in the first three days alone. They may well be quite correct, since we already have on record 7,500 Muslims saved in Sanjeli and Bodeli in the first three days.

The website www.indianembassy.org seems to be an official site of the Indian Embassy in USA. It says-

“In Mora village of Panchmahal district, SDM, Mamlatdar and police rushed to the spot where the crowd was gathered, dispersed the crowd and saved the lives of 400 people by shifting them to a safe place.

On receipt of information on 3rd March 2002 a madarsa in Asoj, in Vagodia, Vadodara district was likely to be attacked, nearly 40 persons including 22 children were evacuated to a safe place.

On the night of 2/3 March 2002, in Dahod, the police escorted over 2000 persons belonging to minority community to a safe place, rescuing them from the mob that had gathered from surrounding 28 villages.

In Surat city, protection was provided to about 60 persons and mosque in Nana Varacha area.On receipt of information that some women and children were trapped in a mosque, Surat police escorted them to a safe place.

On receipt of information that 100 persons were trapped near Rita society opposite Yateem Khana Jain Mandir, the police immediately rushed there and dispersed the mob, but found no persons trapped inside. Surat police immediately provided protection requested for by 12-15 houses of Muslims near Khoja Masjid.”

See link: http://www.indianembassy.org/new/gujarat_02/index.htm

   The riots were brought under control in 72 hours. Police records and figures given by the Union Home Ministry as well as figures given by The Times of India dated 7th March 2002 reveal that as many as 98 people were killed in the first three days in police firing. We have already looked at the reports The Indian Express and The Hindu to know that the figure of 98 people being shot dead in the first 3 days is indeed true. This was a record of sorts. Never before were so many people shot dead in police firing for rioting in so few days in the entire history of communal riots in India, and certainly not in Gujarat, which saw far worse riots in 1969 and 1985.

In the entire state of Gujarat, there are 18,600 villages, 240 municipal towns and 25 district headquarters. In the entire state, riots occurred in no more than 70 places. If you include the two big cities of Ahmedabad and Vadodara, by the maximum stretch of imagination, it can be said that 2 % of the state was affected by riots, or was in flames.

The Times of India in a report dated 28 April 2002 reported that “Of the total substantive arrests made by the police, 9,954 are Hindus and 4,035 Muslims. However, in the preventive arrests column, the statistics show that the number of Hindus arrested is much higher — 17,947 as against 3,616 Muslims.”

To quell the violence:

1-Not only did the Gujarat government call the Army as early as possible but also declared this decision publicly on February 28th evening.

2-The Gujarat police arrested nearly 25,204 out of the 25, 486 accused.

 3-More than 17,000 of the 25,000 arrested were Hindus.

4-Police fired over 10,500 rounds of bullets (exact number 10,559)-including 5450 in the first 3 days, though Army was present for 73 out of 74 days.

5-Police fired over 15,000 (exact number 15,369) tear gas shells.

6-98 people were killed in police firing in the first 3 days- and 199 for the entire period of the riots.

7-The police arrested 35,552 people as on 28 April 2002 out of whom 27,901 were Hindus. About 20,000 were preventive arrests.

The rivals of the then Chief Minister of Gujarat appear to have instigated riots in the state after 21stApril 2002 so as to target Narendra Modi in their Modi-hatao campaign. The Rajya Sabha debated on Gujarat on 6 May 2002. The NDA allies’ votes were also going to count. To get NDA allies to vote against the Modi government, the Opposition wanted to keep the riots going on in Gujarat. It also hoped for a collapse of the NDA, with allies quitting coalition because of the riots.

   Riots in the first three days were all the result of Godhra. But Godhra itself was the brain of local Muslim Congress leaders. The Indian Express of 5 March 2002 reported on Godhra that Congress leaders are accused in Godhra:

1- Mehmud Hussain Kalota, convenor of the Congress district minority cell and president of the Godhra municipality.

2-Salim Abdul Ghaffar Sheikh, president of the Panchmahal Youth Congress.

3-Abdul Rehman Abdul Majid Ghantia, a known Congress worker.

4-Faroukh Bhana, secretary of the district Congress committee.

5- Haji Bilal, a known Congress worker.

   When 31 people were convicted for the Godhra carnage, one Congressman was given life imprisonment and one was given death penalty out of the above five, while Faroukh Bhana was absconding, and convicted later after being caught. Abdul Rehman Abdul Majid Ghantia got life imprisonment and Haji Bilal got death penalty—two out of these five. The Gujarat High Court also upheld their conviction, but gave all of them life imprisonment reducing the death penalty to one of them on 9 October 2017.  http://www.rediff.com/news/report/the-men-convicted-for-godhra-carnage/20110222.htm

Nos 2 and 3 in this list are the above-mentioned Congress people. Later when 2 more Muslims were convicted in August 2018, Faroukh Bhana, who had been been absconding since 2002 was also convicted.

   The following was the report of NDTV dated 3rd March, 2002:

    “Sunday, March 3, 2002 (Godhra)

   The prime suspect in the Godhra train carnage case, Mohammad Hussain Kolota, local Congress leader and president  of Godhra Municipality, was today arrested, bringing the total number of arrests in connection with the attack to 27. Kolota, convener of city Congress minority cell, was picked up by personnel of the anti-dacoity squad of the city police from the residence of one Iqbal in Polan Bazar area during a combing operation at about 4 a.m. (IST), Inspector General of Police, Deepak Swaroop said. Kolota, 45, has been evading arrest since the attack on the Sabarmati Express last Wednesday, in which 58 people were killed.

   Police have already arrested two municipal  councillors  and were looking  for another two—Bilal  Haji and Farookh Bhana—in connection  with  the mayhem that led to widespread  communal violence in several parts of Gujarat, claiming more than 300 lives.

   Kolota, who practised law in the town, reportedly joined Congress six years back, informed sources said in Godhra. Others arrested from different places were identified as Siraj Jamsa, Zabir Kala, Abdul Sheikh and Abdul Rauf Yayman…Earlier, police had arrested 22, including two councillors—Salim Shaikh and Abdul Rahim Dantia. Both the councillors had contested the polls on independent symbols (PTI).”

http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/mar/03train5.htm Even NDTV reported this PTI News.

On 28 Aug 2018, 2 more were convicted and given life term for Godhra, and then 1 more. With that, total 34 have been convicted. 8 more accused are absconding. Faroukh Bhana was absconding, but caught later, and has been convicted and given life imprisonment on 28 August 2018, and he was Congress’s District secretary.

The Indian Express reported on 28 August 2018:

“A special trial court here on Monday sentenced two more accused — Farukh Bhana and Imran alias Sheru Batuk — to life imprisonment in the 2002 Sabarmati Express train burning case at Godhra railway station that led to communal riots in Gujarat.

Special judge H C Vora acquitted three others — Hussain Suleman Mohan, Kasam Bhamedi and Faruk Dhantiya. They were among the six arrested by different agencies between 2015 and 2016. Another accused, Sabir Abdul Gani Pataliya, had died during pendency of the trial.

Among the two convicted on Monday, Farukh Bhana, in his 50s, was the sitting corporator of Polan-Bazar area of Godhra municipality in February 2002 when the train was set on fire, killing 59 people, and was on the run since then. It was alleged that on the night of February 26, 2002, Bhana and other accused held a meeting at Aman Guest House near the Godhra railway station as part of their conspiracy to set ablaze the S6 coach of the Sabarmati Express. He was arrested by Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad in May 2016 from a toll plaza in Panchmahals where he had come to meet his family members.

Sheru Batuk, who has also been sentenced to life imprisonment, was convicted of conspiracy and being part of the mob. He was arrested by Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch in 2016 from Malegaon in Maharashtra.

Special Additional Public Prosecutor N N Prajapati said, “While Bhana was the mastermind of the attack, Batuk was actually leading the mob…”

On March 1, 2011, the special SIT court had convicted 31 people, out of whom 11 were given death sentence and 20 were sentenced to life imprisonment.

In October last year (2017), the Gujarat High Court commuted the death sentence awarded to 11 convicts to life term. All 31 convicts have moved the Supreme Court challenging the High Court’s order.”

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/godhra-train-case-two-more-convicted-sentenced-to-life-term-5327959/

To read the full chapter, read the book “Gujarat Riots: The True Story”. 

https://www.amazon.in/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth/dp/1482841649/

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Only Muslims were rendered homeless and suffered economically

Fact: The UPA Government, which was staunchly anti-BJP, anti-Narendra Modi said in a written reply [i.e. the Government knew very well what it was doing] inside Parliament on 11 May 2005 that 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed after Godhra. It mentioned 223 people missing at that time. At one point, 228 people were missing but later 101 of them were found alive and only 127 people remained missing even after 7 years, when they were declared dead. 59 Hindus were also killed in Godhra. So, as a minimum 313 Hindus were killed in Gujarat in 2002.

     As early as 5 March 2002, out of the 98 relief/ refugee camps set up in the state, 85 were for the Muslims and 13 were for the Hindus, as per official records. As on 17 March 2002, as per the report of a known anti-BJP newspaper The Times of India, more than 10,000 Hindus were rendered homeless in Ahmedabad alone.

As on 25 April 2002, out of the 1 lakh 40 thousand refugees, some 1 lakh (i.e. 100 thousand) were Muslims and 40 thousand were Hindus.

Times Now channel admitted in 2009 quoting from Agencies that 40,000 Hindus were also rendered homeless in the Gujarat riots, i.e. Muslims threw out as many as 40,000 Hindus in Gujarat even after Godhra, just like they did in Kashmir where lakhs of Hindus left the valley.

http://www.timesnow.tv/articleshow/4327688.cms

The Indian Express dated 7 May 2002 and 10 May 2002 devoted two full reports exclusively to Hindu victims of Gujarat. Dalits were attacked by Muslims in Ahmedabad and were rendered homeless. These Hindus were not only rendered homeless-they did not even have refugee camps to live in-and hence had to live in temples. Many others were forced to sleep on the streets.

See link: http://archive.indianexpress.com/oldStory/2401/

The Times of India dated 18 March 2002 also devoted a report exclusively to the Hindu victims of Ahmedabad. The report was titled-”Riots hit all classes, people of all faith” and says-”Contrary to popular belief that only Muslims have been affected in the recent riots, more than 10,000 people belonging to the Hindu community have also become homeless”. This was the case only in Ahmedabad. What happened to Hindus in Muslim dominated villages outside Ahmedabad and in other cities like Vadodara was not reported by The Times of India! This report also indicates that Muslims attacked Hindus unprovoked on February 28 itself in some areas of Ahmedabad. The Hindus who were living in minority in Muslim dominated areas of Ahmedabad suffered horribly. The Dalits suffered heavily at the hands of Muslims.

This report can be read on http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4193006.cms

The Hindus also suffered economically. As per the reports of none other than The Times of India, as many as 50 Hindus shops were torched in Revdi Bazaar area of Ahmedabad on 23 March 2002 by Muslims. The financial loss was as much as 15 crore rupees. Many more Hindu shops were looted in the rest of Gujarat too. The Tribune dated 30 April 2002 also reported that 36 Hindu shops were looted on 29 April 2002.

To read the report of The Times of India on the burning of 50 shops in Ahmedabad, see this link- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4609603.cms

On 30 May, 2002 The Hindu reported: “In a chat with The Hindu, (CPM Politbureau member) Ms Brinda Karat, who was in Bangalore last week, shared a few thoughts on the hurdles in the rehabilitation of people affected by the riots, both Hindus and Muslims…When she did actually see a cheque for Rs. 22,000, it was at the Kankadia camp, which housed Dalits, and Hindus. There, Karat also came across cheques for Rs. 10,000, Rs. 12,000 and Rs. 22,000. “The government seems to be offering some substantial compensation only to the Dalit community,” Ms. Karat observes, emphasising the need to compensate everyone equally.”

 (Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20101129002052/http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mp/2002/05/30/stories/2002053000180200.htm )

        None other than Marxist leader Brinda Karat also admitted that Hindus and particularly Dalits were also homeless. The compensation provided by the Government was equal for all, just that she ‘saw’ cheques of different denominations at different relief camps. While forcibly trying to imply that the Gujarat Government was discriminating Hindu and Muslim victims of riots, she admitted that there were Hindus also rendered homeless. Note here also that Dalits and Hindus are not separate, Dalits are Hindus indeed, but Brinda Karat forcibly tries to separate Dalits from Hindus as if they are different.

 Full details of this are given in the book in the chapter “Attacks on Hindus”. To know the details, read the book.

https://www.amazon.in/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth/dp/1482841649/

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Gujarat riots were the ‘worst ever massacre’ in India

Fact: Gujarat riots of 2002 AD were much lesser as compared to Gujarat’s past riots of 1969 and 1985 AD. Gujarat also saw riots of a large scale in 1980, 1982, 1990-91- 92. Some people claim that even the 1987 Ahmedabad riots were worse than the 2002 riots in the state. And the 2002 riots were again much lesser as compared to the pre-Independence riots of the 1940’s in Ahmedabad when the Hindu community took a sound beating.

In the 1960s, in 10 years there were 2938 recorded riots in Gujarat under the Congress rule, as reported by the Reddy Commission, coming to an average of 3 riots every 4 days. In the horrific 1969 riots, curfew was imposed for 65 days in a row. In 1985, violence continued for as long as six months, from February to July.

And there were many more riots far far worse than the 2002 Gujarat riots in India- not to talk of the 1947 Partition riots. Let it be repeated here that we consider even a single killing as one too many. There is no justification for a single death, be it a Hindu or a Muslim, but that doesn’t give anyone the license to lie that “The Gujarat riots were the ‘worst-ever massacre’ in India”.

Much worse riots took place in New Delhi in 1984 under the Congress Party’s rule. Officially 3,000 people were killed. Ranganath Mishra Commission gave the number of 3874 out of which 2307 were in Delhi alone. Riots were also not limited to New Delhi then. They occurred in places like West Bengal, Tripura as well. Killings of more than 40,000 Indians have happened in Jammu and Kashmir state of India since 1989. 1,169 people (assuming all missing are dead, after the 7-year period) were killed in Gujarat in 2002 AD, for the sins of 2000 attackers of Godhra. Out of them, more than 250 are Hindus. Post-Godhra riots were neither ‘pogrom’, nor ‘genocide’, nor ‘massacre’. They were not even ‘massacre’, not to talk of the ‘worst-ever massacre in India.’

There was no “Gujarat massacre of Muslims” in the 2002 riots (except for incidents like Naroda Patiya, Gulberg Society, Ode, Pandarwada, and Sadarpura) but plain Hindu-Muslim riots in which hundreds of Hindus were also killed by Muslims even after the gruesome and horrific roasting of 59 Hindus- including 25 women and 15 children, in Godhra and 40,000 Hindus were also thrown out of their homes by Muslims.

The worst-ever massacre was of the Hindus during the medieval times. Timur massacred some 1 lakh Hindus on a single day in Delhi in 1399. Nadirshah, the invader, massacred three to four lakh people in 1739 in Delhi. The massacres of Hindus in medieval India would have put Hitler’s Nazi death-chambers of the 1930s to shame. These massacres happened under all the medieval rulers of India including Akbar- who ordered killing of 30,000 Hindus in February 1568, though he changed from 1570 onwards. Mahmud of Ghazni also massacred many Hindus in between 1001-1027 AD. Mohammad Ghori also did the same between 1192 to 1206. So did all others. The invaders were like a cloud of locusts destroying and devouring everything on their way.

In fact, Professor K.S.Lal in his book “Growth of Muslim population in India” has said that according to his calculations, the Hindu population declined by 80 million between AD 1000 and AD 1525- probably the biggest ever holocaust in world history. 8 crore Hindus were slaughtered by foreign Muslims in this period.

For just a brief and cursory (very very brief and very very cursory) history of Islam in India, see this. This doesn’t focus on the mass murders and massacres of Hindus with detail, which have been given in the book (“Gujarat Riots: The True Story”) but not included in this website.

http://historyofmuslimattacks.blogspot.in/2013/02/islam-in-india-history.html

Pakistan and Bangladesh were also parts of India, and the Hindu population in West Pakistan has declined from 20 % in 1947 to around 1% now- perhaps the biggest unreported genocide, massacre and holocaust in recent times. In the 1971 East Pakistan genocide, Pakistani soldiers killed 30 lakh (i.e. 3 million) Bangladeshis, of whom at least 24 lakh i.e. 2.4 million were Hindus (targeting Hindus specifically, and also other Bengalis after their religious leaders declared that Bangladeshis are un-Islamic), and raped at least 2,50,000 women. Similarly, the Hindu population in Bangladesh has declined from 34 % in 1901 to 29 % in 1947, and to 10 % in 2001, and its around 8.6% as per the 2011 census. Even in India, the Hindu population has declined from 85 % in 1951 to 80.5 % in 2001- and according to the 2011 census it is already in the 70s at 79.8%, below 80%.

Pakistan’s tallest Hindu leader, Sudham Chand Chawla was killed in broad daylight in Jacobabad on 29 Jan 2002 while returning from his rice mill. The culprits were not nabbed, nor was any compensation given to his family. He had in fact been complaining to the so-called civil society of Pakistan for years about the threat to his life, to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and yet nobody did anything. If this was the case with the BIGGEST Hindu leader, then what must be the story of ordinary Hindus, who have already been reduced from 20 % in 1947 to just 1 % now?

http://www.sudhamchandchawla.com/

Looking at the modern, independent India, these riots were still very lesser in intensity. The worst ever massacre in independent India was of the Hindus in Kashmir, which continues till date. After that, nothing was worse than the 1984 riots, when the Sikhs were massacred by the ruling Congress Party. In Bhagalpur, Bihar in 1989 under the Congress rule itself more than 1400 people were killed, most of whom were Muslims, after Muslims threw bombs on Hindu localities, and then suffered in retaliation. There were much worse riots in various other places, like in Assam in 1983, Moradabad, Jamshedpur, etc on many other occasions.

To read the full chapter, read the book “Gujarat Riots: The True Story”. 

https://www.amazon.in/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth/dp/1482841649/

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Gujarat police was anti-Muslim

Fact: Far from it, the police was slow to act against Muslim fanatics for fear of being called ‘anti-Muslim’ by a section of the media. As many as 199 people were shot dead by the police in Gujarat- i.e. killed in police firing in the entire period of rioting, including 98 in the first 3 days, which is a record of sorts. The Times of India reported on 28 April 2002 that until 27 April 2002 a total of 170 people had been killed in police firing. After that, more died in police firing till the Army began leaving Ahmedabad on 21 May 2002, to take the final toll to 199.

Muslims greeted the police, and also the army, with bullets and turned off the power supply, formed human chains so as enable criminals to escape with arms and ammunition, and made life hell, and accused the police of being biased, when the police came to search for armories in Muslim areas [Source: India Today, 15 April 2002]. For fear of being labeled anti-Muslim, the police failed to do its duty as efficiently as it should have.

The official records show that as many as 552 security personnel were injured trying to control the riots- 83 officers, 419 men and 50 Home Guard. Exactly how many lost their lives is not revealed. Many policemen lost their lives as well, like when a mob burnt alive a policeman in Juhapura on 1st March 2002 as reported by The Hindu the next day, or in Ahmedabad’s Gomtipur area on 21 April 2002- Ramnavami Day, when constable Amar Patil was stabbed to death by Muslim fanatics.

India Today weekly in its issue dated 20 May 2002, clearly admits that, far from being anti-Muslim, the Gujarat police did not act speedily against Muslim fanatics and rioters, for fear of being called anti-Muslim by the biased and partisan media.

The India Today weekly report dated 20 May 2002 says-“A series of attacks on policemen by Muslims has further added to the lack of faith. Now, strapped with the anti-Muslim label, the police has been slow in acting against Muslim fanatics”.

See the link- http://archives.digitaltoday.in/indiatoday/20020520/states2.html

This will contain the above sentence in the 6th paragraph from the top.

A moderate Muslim resident of Gujarat, who was a witness to these riots, told this writer that the perception of the police being anti-Muslim led to attacks on policemen by Muslims.This perception was fueled by the mainstream media.

The Gujarat Police saved at least 24,000 Muslims from certain death in the first three days-in places like Sanjeli, Bodeli, and Viramgam in particular.

Link- http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20020422/states.shtml

See passages 2,3 and 4 from the top.

Gujarat police shot dead 98 people in the first 3 days-majority of whom are Hindus. The Police arrested most of the accused for rioting. Also The Times of India in a report titled “More fall prey to police firings in Gujarat” dated 28 April 2002 says that a total of 35,552 people were arrested for rioting in Gujarat- out of whom 27,901 were Hindus.

See link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/More-fall-prey-to-police-firings-in-Gujarat/articleshow/8283550.cms

Moreover, the prosecution of the police was so efficient that until now, at least 484 people have been convicted for rioting in Gujarat-out of whom at least 373 are Hindus.

To read the full chapter, read the book “Gujarat Riots: The True Story”. 

https://www.amazon.in/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth/dp/1482841649/

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