A plot from the devil's lair

Manu Joseph for Outlook India
3 June 2002
http://63.149.48.25/viewarticle.php?sid=3506
What exactly happened on the night of February 27 in
chief minister 
Narendra Modi's bungalow in Gandhinagar? All along
there have been rumours 
of a late-evening meeting called by Modi on the day of
the Godhra 
carnage in which he instructed senior police officials
to allow "people to 
vent their frustration" over the torching of two
coaches of the 
Sabarmati Express during the VHP bandh the following
day. 

These rumours have now been confirmed. Information
gathered by Outlook 
shows that a senior minister from his own cabinet has
blown the whistle 
on Modi. Last week, the minister deposed before the
Concerned Citizens 
Tribunal headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice
Krishna Iyer. 

The nine-member tribunal comprising former judges and
other eminent 
citizens was in Gujarat to record evidence on who or
what may have caused 
the Gujarat carnage. 

Former Bombay High Court judge Justice Hosbet Suresh,
who is on the 
Concerned Citizens panel and who also heard the
deposition, confirms that 
the minister did depose before him. He told Outlook:
"Yes, a senior 
minister appeared before us for 35 to 40 minutes and
talked to us about a 
few things that led to the Gujarat carnage. Among
other things, the 
minister spoke about the meeting Modi called on the
night of February 27." 
The minister spoke to the tribunal on the condition
that it would not 
name him in its final report. Another member of the
panel has also 
confirmed the minister's deposition. 

The minister told Outlook that in his deposition, he
revealed that on 
the night of February 27, Modi summoned DGP K.
Chakravarthy, 
commissioner of police, Ahmedabad, P.C. Pande, chief
secretary G. Subarao, home 
secretary Ashok Narayan, secretary to the home
department K. Nityanand (a 
serving police officer of IG rank on deputation) and
DGP (IB) G.S. 
Raigar. Also present were officers from the CM's
office: P.K. Mishra, Anil 
Mukhim and A.K. Sharma. The minister also told Outlook
that the meeting 
was held at the CM's bungalow. 

The minister told the tribunal that in the two-hour
meeting, Modi made 
it clear there would be justice for Godhra the next
day, during the 
VHP-called strike. He ordered that the police should
not come in the way 
of "the Hindu backlash". At one point in this
briefing, according to the 
minister's statement to the tribunal, DGP Chakravarthy
vehemently 
protested. But he was harshly told by Modi to shut up
and obey. Commissioner 
Pande, says the minister, would later show remorse in
private but at 
that meeting didn't have the guts to object. 

According to the deposition, it was a typical Modi
meeting: more orders 
than discussion. By the end of it, the CM ensured that
his top 
officials* especially the police* would stay out of
the way of the Sangh 
parivar (RSS) men. The word was passed on to the mobs.


(According to a top IB official, on the morning of
February 28, VHP and 
Bajrang Dal activists first visited some parts of
Ahmedabad and created 
minor trouble just to check if the police did in fact
look the other 
way. Once Modi's word was confirmed, the carnage
began.) 

The minister further told the tribunal that two
cabinet ministers were 
present in the police control room on February 28.
They took over the 
control room and personally supervised the
proceedings. (The names of 
the ministers, Ashok Bhatt and I.K. Jadeja, have very
often been taken by 
police sources but to date there is no FIR registered
against them, nor 
has any police official who was present in the control
room at the time 
ever confirmed this allegation).