FACT: This is absolutely untrue, and a lie concocted much after the riots. No such charge was made during the actual time of the riots in 2002, nor for many months later. The SIT report says on pages 261-262 that there is NO RECORD of any call made to Narendra Modi by Ehsan Jafri.
The following is some part of Arundhati Roy’s article in weekly Outlook dated 6 May 2002 on the Ehsan Jafri case:
“…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, even Arundhati Roy does not claim that Jafri called Modi! All these claims of calls to the Police Commissioner, Chief Secretary are false. The SIT examined call records of the Police Commissioner P C Pandey and found that no call was made by Jafri, 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! But even Roy 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…”
This is a credibility-less article by Arundhati Roy, claiming that Jafri’s daughters were raped. His son T A Jafri clarified that his sisters were safe in USA and this exposed the truth. We also dealt with this in Myth 11. But even in such an article full of factual errors, even Roy does not claim that Jafri called the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
In fact, Congress ally the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind alleged in August 2003 that Jafri had in fact called Sonia Gandhi for help! The Times of India reported on 9 August 2003 in an article titled: “Congress silent on cadres linked to Gujarat riots” that the JUH secretary N A Farooqui says: “The Congress has committed sins of omission and commission during the riots. Former MP Ehsan Jaffri had called up Sonia Gandhi for help. She didn’t take a strong stand in her subsequent visit to Gujarat. The local bodies were mostly headed by the Congress which could have done a lot for relief and rehabilitation, but it was all left to the NGOs.” As late as August 2003, no claim of Jafri calling Modi is made, in fact JUH claimed that Jafri had called Sonia Gandhi!
Also Roy says-“ The mobile police vans around his house did not intervene.” This is totally incorrect. Police outside his house not only intervened, they shot dead 5 rioters outside his house and saved the lives of 180 Muslims, at a great risk to their own personal life. Police fired 124 rounds and burst 134 tear gas shells at the spot, also injured 11 Hindus and lathi-charged the crowd as well, according to the SC-appointed SIT’s report, Page 1. 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 that day in Gulberg Society by transporting them in vans, and had it not been for timely action by the Police, the mob would have lynched them all. This is also mentioned in the SIT report on page 16.
Note here that even 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 and was abused by Modi on phone! On page 203-204 the SIT says that though P C Pandey (Ahmedabad Police Commissioner) received/made 302 calls in 24 hours on 28 February 2002, no call was made to him by Jafri, whose landline was the only phone in operation in the entire housing complex at that time. And yet, some ‘activists’ seem to have paid bribes to a witness and survivor, Imtiaz Pathan to falsely claim that Modi had abused Jafri on phone, and Jafri told him (Pathan) this fact before he died!!!
If all the below-mentioned facts are reported by the media, then the reality will be out for everyone to see. There is a heap of evidence present to prove the opposite i.e. that Jafri did not call Modi, which is ignored largely by the mainstream media, particularly TV channels like NDTV, CNN-IBN. One eye witness who has claimed this, Imtiaz Pathan who claimed that Jafri called Modi on phone and before dying Jafri told him (Pathan) that Modi abused him on phone. (This is of course, ridiculous. Let us say, for argument’s sake that Jafri did call Modi and Modi did not want to help him. Would Modi have abused him on phone? Modi would have said “We will send help as soon as possible” and not sent help in such a case. Is Modi a fool to abuse Jafri on phone even if he did not want Jafri to be saved when he knew that anything spoken on phone can be recorded? Such a ridiculous charge has no credibility).
In his immediate testimony to the police in 2002 soon after the riots, Pathan had not named Modi at all, nor made this allegation (Of Jafri calling him and Modi abusing Jafri) for many years after 2002! This charge was first made by Pathan in 2009, years after the incident. If this was true, he would have said so in 2002 itself, and not in 2009 as an ‘after-thought’.
Imtiaz Pathan has claimed the following things wrongly:
1- Police did not come to the complex till 4:30- 5:00 pm
2- Ehsan Jafri gave himself to the crowd, told the crowd “Take me, but spare the women and children”
3- Police Commissioner P C Pandey visited Jafri at 10 am on 28 February (All the above things are wrong on facts, i.e. blatant lies)
Hence it is clear that Imtiaz Pathan has been tutored by someone to claim this. Let us first list some points:
1- 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…(Ehsan Jafri case)”
This is the Ehsan Jafri case- Chamanpura. NOTE THAT THIS REPORT PUBLISHED AT 2:34 PM says that police came and opened fire injuring so many people. India Today weekly dated 18 March 2002 also reports : “Reinforcements did arrive but by that time the mob had swelled to 10,000”. Since this report was posted at 2:34 PM it is clear that this event of police coming and firing must have happened much earlier, say at 1:30 pm at least considering the time it takes to get information, prepare report, proof read it, edit it and post it online. This completely dismantles Imtiaz Pathan’s lies that the police did not come till 4:30-5 pm when The Times’ report POSTED ONLINE at 2:34 PM says that police came and fired.
We also have the statement on Zakia Jafri recorded under Section 161 Cr.PC on 6 March 2002 that the police saved her and dozens of residents that day. The Times of India also reported in its online edition on 28 Feb in a report posted at 9:41 PM. We quote from Times of India online edition posted on 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…”.
Despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered by the mob which had swelled to more than 10,000 (Zakia Jafri herself told India Today weekly in its issue of 18 March 2002-“I have never seen such a huge mob, they burnt alive my husband”), and the mob going crazy by Jafri firing on them with his revolver, the police did a brave job and at a great personal risk they fired on the Hindus and shot dead 5 Hindus outside his house as reported by weekly India Today dated 18 March 2002 and Times of India 28 Feb online. This also did not stop the violence because the crowd was willing to lose a few lives to, as S K Modi puts in his book “Godhra- The Missing rage”, ‘teach Jafri a lesson’. Thus Imtiaz Pathan’s claims have no credibility since police arrived much before 4:30-5 pm and shot dead 5 rioters outside his house. Police saved more than 180 Muslims in this episode since there were 250 people inside Jafri’s house and the mob killed 68- after all missing were declared dead, despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered.
2- Ehsan Jafri fired on the crowd in self-defense. Whether he should have done so or not is a matter of debate, but this act drove the crowd mad and it resolved to kill him, and was willing to lose a few lives. We have seen reports of Times of India and India Today to know that he did fire on the mob which drove it mad. Imtiaz Pathan does not say this. Pathan lies and says: “Jafri appealed to the crowd to spare women and children. He said, ‘Take me, kill me but leave these innocent people’ and gave himself to the crowd.” This claim is absolute trash since it is an established fact that Jafri did not do anything like this and fired on the crowd in self-defense with his revolver, as reported by weekly India Today, Times of India, and also Outlook. SIT has also said that Jafri did indeed fire on the mob, killing 1 and injuring 15, in its report on page 1. This nails Imtiaz Pathan’s another lie.
3- Narendra Modi was very busy that day and there is no way he could have talked to Ehsan Jafri on phone. Though Modi had a mobile phone at that time, he didn’t use it much. That day, all his official lines were busy and he was very busy handling the riots. The SIT has said in its report on page 204 that the landline at Jafri’s house was the ONLY phone in operation in the entire complex, and that Jafri did not have a mobile. If Jafri did call Modi and was abused by him, Jafri would have told this to his widow Zakia or some other people instead of Imtiaz Pathan, who did not make this allegation for a good 7-8 years after 2002.
4- Pathan also claimed that the then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner P C Pandey had visited Jafri’s place in the morning. But the SC-appointed SIT has dismissed this claim after talking to P C Pandey and examining all evidence (and call records of P C Pandey, who made/received as many as 302 calls between 00:35 and 24:00 on 28 February 2002) 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 final report on page 201 that: “It is conclusively established that Shri P C Pandey did not visit Gulbarg Society in the forenoon of 28 February”.
This exposes Pathan’s lies. Note that for around 10 years, from 2002 to 2012, a myth was out in the media that the then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner P C Pandey had visited Jafri’s house in the forenoon of 28 February 2002, before it was attacked. [At one time, in 2010, even this writer believed that myth, that P C Pandey had visited his house.] The truth came out in 2012 with the SIT report, which revealed that call records conclusively prove that P C Pandey did not visit Jafri’s house. But neither Imtiaz Pathan nor his obvious tutors knew this in 2009, and thought that it was Pandey himself who visited the place. So they tutored Pathan to claim that Pandey had visited the place. This clearly shows that Imtiaz Pathan was tutored to make such a claim of Jafri calling Modi. Had he been a genuine witness, he would have honestly stated that he did not see P C Pandey at Jafri’s place in the forenoon of 28 February 2002.
The SIT said that it found no record of any call to Modi by Jafri on pages 261-262. The man with the task of doing this, i.e. requisitioning the call records was a very anti-Narendra Modi official and a favorite of Teesta-NGOs-Media brigade, Rahul Sharma. There is no way he would have missed such a record, had it been true.
Some other questions which can be raised here are: Why didn’t Jafri call any CONGRESS LEADER and ask the Congress Party to assemble 500 workers outside his house to save his life? Why couldn’t the Congress Party have do anything to save its former MP? Jafri was reported to have called Amarsinh Chaudhary, the then PCC chief many times, and indeed made several calls to CONGRESS LEADERS also. 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:
Even if there was a record of any such call, how can the statement of a THIRD PERSON (Pathan, who has given so many wrong claims, like police not coming till 4:30- 5 pm when it came much earlier, and the lie claiming that Jafri surrendered himself to the crowd when he in fact fired on it, and P C Pandey visiting the house when he did not) who was at neither end of the alleged telephone call be relied?
In June 2016, after the trial court judgment on this case, Imtiaz Pathan’s brother Firoz Khan Pathan expressed anger against Teesta Setalvad and other NGOs who ‘used them for personal gains’, reported by Ahmedabad Mirror on 3 June 2016.
This clearly indicates who may have tutored him. Those who tutored him to make this ridiculous charge years after 2002 also should be prosecuted. And those who give credibility to such ridiculous and laughable charges like Outlook, NDTV and Rana Ayub should also be prosecuted.
The special SIT court gave its verdict in June 2016 and convicted 24 people and says in its judgment on page 547:
“Shri J.M.Suthar, IO-SIT, having investigated into and obtained call details of Shri Ehsan Jafri’s landline and it is pointed out by Shri Bhardwaj that Shri J.M.Suthar in the course of his testimony on page No.16 in paragraph No.13, has clearly testified that the call details gathered in the course of the investigation clearly established that only two calls were made from the landline of Shri Ehsan Jafri on the fateful day and these calls were made to one Shri Badruddin Shaikh who was a Congress Corporator and one Noormohammad, both of whose statements were recorded by Shri J.M.Suthar. It is pointed out that in the circumstances, the entire version supplied by these so-called eye-witnesses is not correct and this further raises doubts with regard to the presence of such witnesses within the residence of Shri Ehsan Jafri at the time of the gruesome incident.”
It also says on pp 545-46: “It is further submitted by Shri Bhardwaj that the fact of PW-314 being present in the house of Shri Ehsan Jafri is also a matter of grave doubts inasmuch as, the witness claims that Shri Ehsan Jafri attempted to call up political leaders and other persons in an effort to seek assistance and such calls were made from his residence after 1:30 p.m. It is pointed out that number of witnesses including PWs 106, 107 and 116respectively being Imtiyazkhan, Mrs.Rupaben Modi and Sayeedkhan, have also attempted to corroborate such version by stating that Shri Ehsan Jafri attempted to call a number of political leaders including the then sitting Chief Minister and other important political leaders of the B.J.P., but however, it is pointed out that from the cross examination of this witness, it clearly emerges that no such incident of Shri Ehsan Jafri attempting to call up such persons was disclosed by the witness in his statements recorded before the IOs on 06/03/2002 and 11/03/2002. It is pointed out that even if it is assumed that the IOs were biased and did not faithfully record what was stated, then it is clearly emerging from the cross examination of the PW-314 that even in his own voluntary application accompanied by supporting affidavit made to the Commissioner of Police, no such fact was narrated. It is pointed out that the witness has further conceded in his cross examination on page No.76 in paragraph No.56 the fact of his having stated before the Nanavati-Shah Commission that the phone lines of Gulbarg Society, more particularly the landline of Shri Ehsan Jafri was not functional after 1:30 p.m. It is submitted that if that was really so, then the question of Shri Ehsan Jafri calling up persons including the then Chief Minister of Gujarat State an(d) getting negative responses from all such persons is a blatant untruth.“
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.
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