PaRCha - JNU - DSF SFI-JNU - 2012 ID-57340

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Tehelka -India's Independent Weekly News Magazine Page 3 of 9 .

and action is warranted against him? As chief minister, he did not have to physically patrol streets with mobs to be held culpable. He only needed to look away or send a tacit signal for utter mayhem to take over. That itself would have been crime enough. But from the SITs findings, Modi clearly did more than that. .

Despite this, the SIT chairman claims that there is not enough substantiation for him to recommend further action against Modi under the law. The question then is do we need to change our laws? Or change their selective application? How is it that, to name just one case, men like Binayak Sen reputed doctor and human rights champion can be sentenced to life imprisonment on extremely flimsy evidence and on much lighter allegations? .

The decision on the need for a more thorough investigation now rests with the Supreme Court. Senior Supreme Court lawyer and former additional solicitor general of India, Raju Ramachandran, who is the amicus curiae in the case, has already submitted his observations and recommendations on the SIT probe to the apex court on 20 January. Nobody except the court and the SIT knows what Ramachandran has suggested. .

All eyes are therefore set on the Supreme Court Bench comprising three judges DK Jain, P Sathasivam and Aftab Alam which will convene on 3 March and decide the future course of action. .

AMONG MANY civil rights groups and publications, TEHELKA has been at the forefront of the fight for justice for Gujarat riot victims. In October 2007, through a six month-long undercover operation, TEHELKA had got over 60 hours of footage containing unprecedented on-camera confessions of dozens of rioters, VHP and BJP leaders and public prosecutors admitting to their complicity in the riots and exulting about the elaborate conspiracy that had subverted justice in the aftermath of the riots. The TEHELKA sting led to an uproar in civil society. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) asked the Gujarat government to carry out a probe into the TEHELKA video recordings. But the Modi government simply refused. Following this, the CBI was asked to inquire into the sting. The CBI seized the footage and equipment from TEHELKA and sent it to a forensics lab for authentication. The tapes were declared 100 percent genuine. .

No matter what the Supreme Court decides on 3 March, TEHELKA wants to place the full truth of the SIT probe in the public domain and let readers arrive at their own perspective about Modis guilt in the 2002 Gujarat riots. .

Reading the report is a strange experience. Right through, there is a kind of uneasy see-saw between the reports startling findings and its weak, watered-down conclusions. This tension between findings and conclusions tells its own story. .

What follows is some of the key accusations against Modi and the conclusions the SIT report drew on them. .

Narendra Modi did hold a meeting on 27 February 2002. Did he tell his officers to let Hindus vent their anger freely against Muslims? SIT claims there is no conclusive evidence .

The SIT probe against Modi and his government was ordered by the Supreme Court on 27 March 2009 while hearing a complaint filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of slain Congress leader, Ehsan Jafri, who along with dozens of other Muslims was hacked and burned to death during the riots. Zakia had made 32 specific allegations against Modi and other BJP functionaries, bureaucrats and police officers. The most serious allegation was that Modi had given instructions to the then DGP, chief secretary and other senior officials to allow Hindus to freely vent their anger at the Muslims for the Sabarmati carnage. This instruction was allegedly given at a meeting held at the chief ministers bungalow in Gandhinagar on 27 February 2002. .

SIT Chairman Raghavan notes: The inquiry clearly established that such a meeting was in fact held at the chief ministers residence on the night of 27.02.02 after the chief ministers return to Ahmedabad following his visit to Godhra earlier in the day. (Page 3 of chairmans comments) .

According to inquiry officer AK Malhotra, a retired CBI man, the meeting lasted for about half an hour. There were eight confirmed participants: .

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Chief Minister Narendra Modi .

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Acting Chief Secretary Swarna Kanta Verma .

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Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Ashok Narayan .

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DGP K Chakravarthi .

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Ahmedabad Commissioner of Police PC Pande .

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Secretary (Home) K Nityanandam .

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Principal Secretary to CM PK Mishra .

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Secretary to CM Anil Mukim .

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Before the SIT, two of the senior officers present Swarna Kanta Verma and Ashok Narayan did not refute the allegation that Modi had uttered the shocking words of allowing Hindus to vent their anger. Instead they pleaded loss of memory due to passage of time. (Page 16) Four officers K Chakravarthi, K Nityanandam, PC Pande and PK Mishra have categorically denied that the CM had instructed the police not to control Hindu mobs for a window of time. One officer, Anil Mukim, who is presently on deputation to the Central ministry of commerce, has curiously denied attending this meeting at all. .

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The selective amnesia by two senior officers coupled with Mukims blatant denial of having even attended the meeting suggests a massive cover-up. This becomes even more believable when seen in the light of the fact that out of the four officers who sided with Modi, two PC Pande and PK Mishra had been rewarded with lucrative post-retirement assignments by the Modi government. After his retirement in 2009, PK Mishra has been posted as chairman of the Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission with a fixed tenure for six years. While Pande, after his retirement, has been posted as chairman of Gujarat State Police Housing Corporation. The third, K Nityanandam is still serving in the Modi government and holds the post of managing director of the Gujarat State Police Housing Corporation. Ashok Narayan, who didnt refute the allegation but pleaded memory loss, was also rewarded. After the riots, Narayan was promoted to the post of chief secretary. On 23 May 2003, he was appointed as state vigilance commissioner. He turned 60 on 31 July 2004 but was granted a two-year extension. Subsequently, he was granted four extensions of six months each till 31 December 2008. That adds up to four years of extended benefits granted by the Modi government. .

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Accordingly, SIT Chairman Raghavan observes the three officers (PC Pande, PK Mishra and Ashok Narayan) had been accommodated in post-retirement jobs, and are therefore not obliged to speak against the chief minister or the state government. (Page 4 of chairmans comments) .

The SIT report has also noted that Justice PB Sawant, a retired Supreme Court judge and Justice Hosbert Suresh, a retired judge of the Bombay High Court, who were members of the Concerned Citizens Tribunal that had inquired into the riots have confirmed that former Gujarat minister for state for revenue, Haren Pandya had deposed before them, implicating Modi for his role in the riots. .

The two retired judges told the SIT that Pandya appeared and deposed before the tribunal on 13 May 2002, on condition of anonymity, that he had attended a meeting on 27 February 2002 night at the residence of Modi in which the latter had made it clear that there should be a backlash from the Hindus on the next day and the police should not come in their way. (Page 18 of the report). .

Pandya was murdered mysteriously in 2003. With his death, there is no way to find out if the meeting he referred to was the same one in which senior bureaucrats had participated or if a separate meeting of BJP leaders had been convened by Modi. But .

file://C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\tehelka_SIT.htm 16/04/2012 .

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