People's Democracy

THE barbaric killings in Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujarat were sought to be justified as a natural, spontaneous reaction to the Godhra carnage, both, by the chief minister Narendra Modi, and obliquely by the prime minister Vajpayee. There was much material in the media, including the inquiry reports by the British and EU countries, which debunked this outright lie and exposed the careful planning which went into the execution of this genocide.

This has now been doubly confirmed by the "interim observations" of the Concerned Citizens' Tribunal, headed by retired judge of the Supreme Court, Justice V R Krishna Iyer. Releasing the observations to the press on May 14 in Ahmedabad, the tribunal has clearly stated that the preparations for Gujarat's communal violence began in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal camps at least six months before the Godhra train carnage on February 27 - coinciding with Narendra Modi taking over as the chief minister of Gujarat.

The tribunal conducted public hearings from May 2 at different centres in the state and collected evidences. Around 1500 victims of the carnage deposed before the tribunal. Justice P B Sawant, also a retired judge of the Supreme Court, told the press conference that some "insiders" in the VHP and the Bajrang Dal , who parted company with the organisations before the post-Godhra violence informed the tribunal about these "preparations". They informed that their leaders told them that "something big is going to happen", and the preparations included "recruiting volunteers, training them in the use of arms and ammunition, collecting information about houses, shops and other business establishments of the minority community."

This tallies with the findings of various teams -- CPI(M)-AIDWA, Citizens Initiative, Communalism Combat etc. Mari Marcel Thekaekara, part of the women's probe team, questions in a recent article in The Hindu : If it was the spontaneous outburst of ordinary citizens' anger, how could thousands of talwars (swords), knuckledusters and panjas (metal clawhands to mutilate the opponent) have been manufactured and distributed within two days of Godhra ? Many other reports had drawn attention to the fact that trishuls and other arms were distributed by the sangh parivar in various public functions organised by the Bajrang Dal and VHP. That there was total state patronage to these preparations was evident by the fact that one such function was held right in front of the police commissioner's office.

Referring to the role of the police, the tribunal members, including the retired IPS officer, K S Subramanian, said they not only remained inactive but "participated and connived" in the crimes. The police was also working to sabotage the due process of law. The tribunal also stated that there was evidence to show that "two or three ministers of the Modi cabinet had actively participated in the violence."

Another important corroboration made by the tribunal was regarding the exact number of deaths in this genocide. It believed that "not less than 2000 people had been killed in the riots while at least 500 missing persons could be dead. (The official figure of deaths is around 1000) It has also stated that at least 250 women had been raped and "a large number of women widowed, or children orphaned and many miamed and injured for life."

The Vajpayee government received further blows when two important persons openly faulted its reaction to the international concern about Gujarat violence. Both were addressing the two-day national convention on "Relevance of Human Rights in Governance" being held in Jaipur. The chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Justice J S Verma said violation of human rights as witnessed in Gujarat could not be passed off as an internal matter. "Every human right violation in any corner of the world is the concern of everyone", he asserted. He made it clear that the failure on the part of the authorities to act to save the lives at the time of crises like the one witnessed in Gujarat amounted to violation of human rights.

A day earlier, on May 13, the Attorney-General of India, Soli Sorabjee had expressed similar views while addressing this seminar. While saying that the government should not be hypersensitive to criticism from abroad, Sorabjee felt that the international community had every right to express legitimate concern over Gujarat developments.