{"id":1058,"date":"2023-12-26T05:16:51","date_gmt":"2023-12-26T05:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/?p=1058"},"modified":"2025-01-30T18:25:24","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T18:25:24","slug":"in-ehsan-jafri-case-women-were-raped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/2023\/12\/26\/in-ehsan-jafri-case-women-were-raped\/","title":{"rendered":"In Ehsan Jafri case, women were raped"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Fact:\u00a0<\/strong>The following is some part of Arundhati Roy\u2019s article in weekly\u00a0Outlook\u00a0<\/em>dated\u00a06 May 2002\u00a0on the Ehsan Jafri case:<\/p>

\u201cLast night a friend from\u00a0Baroda\u00a0called. Weeping. It took her fifteen minutes to tell me what the matter was. It wasn\u2019t 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 \u2018OM\u2018 on her forehead\u2026<\/span><\/p>

\u2026A 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.<\/span>\u00a0[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.]<\/strong>\u00a0The 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\u2019s 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\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Outlook\u00a0<\/em> published a rebuttal from a senior functionary of the BJP, the then Rajya Sabha MP Balbir Punj. The following was the reply:<\/p>

\u201cFiddling With Facts As\u00a0Gujarat\u00a0Burns<\/span><\/h3>

\u201cIntroduction: The Roys in the media are harming India with half-truths and worse.\u00a0 \u2018(Here Balbir Punj quotes some sentences from Roy\u2019s article dated 6 May, 2002)\u2026.\u2019<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That was the Goddess of small things, Arundhati Roy, painting the big picture of Gujarat in Democracy: Who\u2019s She When She\u2019s at Home?<\/a> <\/em><\/span>(Outlook<\/em>, 6th<\/sup> May, 2002). Roy sums here neatly almost all the charges against the Sangh Parivar<\/em>\u2026Read her graphic details\u2014\u2018The mob broke into the house. They stripped his daughters and burnt them alive\u2019\u2026<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 Heart-rending, yes, but honest, no. Jafri was killed in the riots but his daughters were neither \u2018stripped\u2019 nor \u2018burnt alive\u2019. T.A. Jafri, his son, in a front-page interview titled \u2018Nobody Knew My Father\u2019s House was the Target\u2019 (Asian Age,<\/em> 2nd<\/sup> May, Delhi edition), says,<\/strong> \u2018Among 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.\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 So, Roy is lying\u2014for surely Jafri is not. But what about the hundreds of media lies that haven\u2019t been exhumed as yet? Her seven- page long (approx: 6,000 words) hate charter against India and the Sangh Parivar <\/em>is woven around just two specific cases of human tragedy, one of which\u2014by now, we know for sure\u2014is a piece of fiction<\/strong>\u2026.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026she terms Gujarat the \u201cpetri dish\u201d of the Sangh Parivar<\/em>. The fact is that Godhra has been used as a crucible by the secular fundamentalists. No wonder, after the roasting of the Ramsevaks<\/em>, 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\u2026.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 The Sangh Parivar <\/em>was not there in 1714, nor was it a dominant force during the \u201969 and \u201985 riots. So, what explains these riots when Gujarat was not a \u2018Sangh Parivar <\/em>petri dish\u2019?…<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026following 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<\/sup> April Hindus accounted for more deaths in police firing than Muslims.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 Bu<\/strong>t 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. <\/strong>The police have booked 34,000 rioters, majority of whom are Hindus.\u00a0 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\u2014and they target at random. One lakh Muslims are struggling in relief camps, but so are 40,000 Hindus. <\/strong>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\u2026<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 Roy (a role model for several in the secular pack) opens her hate charter with the case of a woman named Sayeeda \u2018whose stomach was ripped open and stuffed with burning rags\u2019. 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<\/strong>. Roy gave one, but it proved to be a piece of fiction\u2026.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026the Editor\u2019s 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\u2019s 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?\u201d<\/span> \u00a0(URL: \u00a0https:\/\/www.outlookindia.com\/opinion\/fiddling-with-facts-as-gujarat-burns-news-215755<\/span><\/a> )<\/p>

This really gave the game up. After this, Arundhati Roy wrote \u201cAn apology\u201d<\/span><\/a>. The full text of that apology is reproduced here:<\/p>

\u201cTo the Jaffri Family, An Apology<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

Democracy<\/a><\/span><\/p>

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\u2014then panic, fear and rumour play a pivotal role. (Note how she blames others for her fault!)<\/strong>\u00a0People 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.<\/span><\/p>

But in an atmosphere so charged with violence, grief and mistrust, its important to correct mistakes that are pointed out.<\/span><\/p>

There is a factual error in my essay\u00a0Democracy: Where\u2019s she when she\u2019s at home?\u00a0<\/em>(May 6).\u00a0In 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.\u00a0His daughters were not among the 10 women who were raped and killed in Chamanpura that day.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

I apologise to the Jaffri family for compounding their anguish. I\u2019m truly sorry.<\/span><\/p>

My information (mis-information, as it turned out) was cross-checked from two sources.\u00a0Time<\/em> magazine (March 11) in an article by Meenakshi Ganguly and Anthony Spaeth; and\u00a0\u201cGujarat Carnage 2002: A Report to the Nation\u201d 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. (<\/span><\/span>What was the name of the senior police official? Neither Subrahmanyam nor Arundhati Roy reveal it!)<\/strong><\/p>

This and other genuine errors in recounting the details of the violence in\u00a0Gujarat\u00a0in no way alters the substance of what journalists, fact-finding missions, or writers like myself are saying.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

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

Years later, Balbir Punj wrote in Organiser\u00a0<\/em>dated\u00a09 July 2006:<\/p>

\u201cSome four years ago I had a clash in print with Arundhati Roy. The occasion was the\u00a0Gujarat\u00a0riots that had come as a windfall to \u2018secular\u2019 brigade\u2019s publicity campaign. Those \u2018secularists\u2019 are no where visible, not even with a telescope, when Hindus are killed in Doda...<\/em><\/span><\/p>

Roy\u00a0had begun her charter of hate with another damning description: \u201cLast night a friend from\u00a0Baroda\u00a0called. Weeping. It took her fifteen minutes to tell me what the matter was. It wasn\u2019t 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 \u2018OM\u2019 on her forehead\u201d.<\/span><\/p>

Shocked by this despicable \u201cincident\u201d, 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\u00a0<\/strong>Roy<\/strong>\u2019s 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,\u00a0<\/strong>Roy<\/strong><\/span>, through her lawyer<\/span> [He was Prashant Bhushan], replied that the police had no power to issue summons.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Thus she hedged behind technical excuses. I took up this incident in my rejoinder published as\u00a0Dissimulation In Word and Images<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(The Outlook,\u00a0July 8, 2002).\u201d<\/span><\/p>

See link:<\/p>

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

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 <\/em>magazine concocted lies in its issue of 11 March 2002, copied by Arundhati Roy. Neither Roy nor the Time <\/em>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 \u201cTo the Jafri family\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Second incorrect claim by Roy: The police did nothing to stop the mob in Jafri\u2019s house. Roy says, \u201cHis 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.\u201d<\/span> 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. <\/a><\/strong>The Times of India <\/em>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.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 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],<\/strong> 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<\/a>, so how could Jafri have called him?<\/strong><\/p>

\u00a0 Jafri\u2019s 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. <\/strong>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<\/a> on page 1.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 But they managed to disperse the mob by 8 PM on 28 February- according The Times of India<\/em>\u2019s online report at 9:41 PM\u00a0<\/a>published the same day. And nowhere did\u00a0The Times of India<\/em>\u00a0accuse 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\u00a0Times of India\u00a0<\/em>report POSTED ONLINE at 2:34 PM of 28 February<\/a> 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.<\/p>

The\u00a0Human Rights Watch<\/em>\u00a0in its report quotes 38 year old Mehboob Mansoori, a witness who lost 18 from his family at Gulbarg Society as saying: \u201cEarly in the day at 10:30 the police commissioner came over and said don\u2019t worry.<\/strong> 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\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

Actually the testimony of this witness is a poorly constructed story. S K Modi in his book \u201cGodhra: The Missing Rage\u201d<\/em>\u00a0had 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<\/a> on page 201 that: \u201cIt is established conclusively that Shri P C Pandey did not visit Gulbarg\u00a0 Society in the forenoon of 28 Feb\u201d.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>

Note here that Roy does not claim that Jafri telephoned the Chief Minister Narendra Modi as late as May 2002. <\/strong>Now- lies are out that Jafri actually phoned Modi as was abused by Modi on phone! For full truth of this lie,\u00a0read Myth 23.<\/a><\/p>

The Times of India\u00a0in its online edition on 28 February 2002 reported at 2:34 PM :<\/p>

\u201cAhmedabad:\u00a0At least six persons were injured when police opened fire to disperse a rampaging mob in Meghaninagar area of the city on Thursday afternoon.\u00a0<\/strong>The injured were brought to civil hospital where the condition of at least three is stated to be serious\u2026the incident took place at Chamanpura area under Meghaninagar police station\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>

http:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/\/india\/Police-open-fire-in-Ahmedabad-6-hurt\/articleshow\/2360713.cms<\/a><\/p>

That is, as early as 2:34 PM itself police had injured 6 outside Ehsan Jafri\u2019s house and actually 5 were killed in their firing and 11 injured. This despite the hopeless situation, which is clear from reading\u00a0The Times\u2019\u00a0<\/em>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.<\/p>

We quote from\u00a0Times of India<\/em>\u00a0online edition 28 Feb night at 9:41 PM \u201cMeanwhile fire tenders which rushed to the spot<\/span> (Chamanpura- Ehsan Jafri case) were turned back by the irate mob which disallowed the Ahmedabad Fire Brigade (AFB) personnel and the district police from\u00a0rushing to rescue<\/strong>\u2026Sources 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..\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Thus the Police and the Fire Brigade \u2018rushed to the rescue\u2019 and did not indulge in neglect of duty.<\/p>

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.<\/strong>\u00a0One link:\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/2009-03-26\/subverse\/28032145_1_religious-symbols-religion-and-politics-gulbarga-society<\/a><\/p>

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<\/sup>\u00a0April 2002,\u00a0Tehelka\u2019<\/em>s website said\u2013\u201cNafisa 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.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

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.<\/p>

More details of this issue are given comprehensively in the book<\/a>, but not in this website. A special chapter on the SIT report is also in\u00a0the book<\/a>, which reveals the whole truth and the SIT\u2019s observations.<\/p>

To read the full chapter, read the book \u201cGujarat Riots: The True Story\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>

https:\/\/www.amazon.in\/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth\/dp\/1482841649\/<\/a><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 ________________________________________________________________<\/p>

You can follow us on twitter at\u00a0https:\/\/twitter.com\/Gujaratriotscom<\/strong><\/a><\/p>

After numerous requests from readers, we have opened a Facebook page as well, on 17 Feb 2014. You can \u2018like\u2019 our Facebook page here: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gujaratriots2002<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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