Narendra Modi and the Murder of Sohrabuddin

The election campaign of Chief Minister of Gujarat at Mangrol reached a climax that might prove a temporary respite from the ultimate eventuality in his drama of politics. A huge shock had come after the exposure of the sting operation. Temporarily it seemed to have passed away. But who knows whether it has. He stirred the emotion by his insidious reference to the fake encounter death of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser. He was at his communal best when he vowed to shield Taslima Nasrin and within the same week justified the fake encounter murders. About Sohrabuddin he remarked “he got what he deserved.” He asked his people in Mangrol, south Gujarat, on December 4, 2007: What would the people do to the man who dealt in smuggling guns. They thundered: “kill him". "Then if I have done anything wrong, let the government of Sonia Gandhi hang me," he said. There is a more accurate version of the Tuesday meeting of Mangrol:
Modi asked, "What should have been done to a man from whom a large number of AK-47 rifles were recovered, who was on the search list of police from four states, who attacked the police, who had relations with Pakistan and was eyeing to enter Gujarat?"
The crowd replied "mari nakho, mari nakho (kill him)" to which the Chief Minister responded, "Does my Government need to take permission of Soniaben for this?"

Modi has thrown down his gauntlet not only to Congress but to the judiciary of our nation, as well as the Election Commission.


This is playing with fire. But the premium is very high. For example there is the case of Haresh Bhatt who was the Bajrang Dal rashtriya sah sanyojak in 2002 and is now the BJP MLA from Godhra. He has said that bombs were made at his factory and that even rocket launchers were made there and then they were distributed throughout Ahmedabad during the pogroms of 2002. During curfew in the city arms including guns and swords were brought in from Punjab, Bihar, UP and MP for the obvious reason of murdering Muslims during the pogroms. They were distributed under the nose of the police in the curfew times. How Haresh Bhatt and his men distributed the weapons to the murderous crowds he narrates proudly:
Bhatt: I have my own gun factory… I used to make firecrackers… We made all the bombs there… Diesel bombs, pipe bombs, we made them there… and we used to distribute them from there as well… We ordered two truckloads of swords from Punjab… right here, in a village called Dhariya, we readied everything there… and then we distributed the samaan [arms]… At that time, the only thing was that the samaan was needed…TEHELKA: Where did you get the arms from?
Bhatt:We got many country-made pistols… from MP, from UP… we got pistols from everywhere and I distributed them from here… I am talking about this for the first time…nobody knew this secret.TEHELKA: I know that Hindus do not keep weapons, apart perhaps from kitchen knives…
Bhatt:We distributed so many weapons that people were shocked to see how many there were… We would make them here and then test them... We made a completelauncher inside a pipe, right here in the factory... It was a launcher from the side and had piping over that… chaar ki pipe lagaate the… after closing the entire hole we filled thatwith shrapnel and nails... and beneath that placed a 595 bomb… We’d set it off… it would go through a wall nine inches thick…• • •
Bhatt and his cohorts also smuggled weapons as Modi hinted that Sohrabuddin did:
TEHELKA: Hareshbhai, you were saying that you got arms from Kanpur, but there was curfew…
Bhatt: Why couldn’t they have been brought?… Anything can be brought.TEHELKA: I was thinking that if curfew…
Bhatt: I got them from MP… I got them from Bihar.TEHELKA: But how, when curfew was in force?
Bhatt: Things come, everything can come.TEHELKA: If it came from other states, it had to cross borders…
Bhatt: That’s it… they would smuggle [emphasis added] it… and it wasn’t just one trip that came for me… there were scores of them.

Another person who told similar ghoulish premeditated plans of carrying out the genocide is Dhawal Jayanti Patel, the VHP Sabarkantha zila sanyojak:
Patel: Lots of bombs… lots of desi bombs were made and sent…
TEHELKA: A thousand? Two thousand?Patel: They were useful in the galis, in face-to-face encounters… Juhapura… Kalupur

The vibhag pramukh of VHP Anil Patel has corroborated what Haresh Bhatt and Dhawal Jayanti Patel have said.


Now the ball is in the courts of the Election Commission and the judicial courts. Given Modi’s justification of the murder of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser and his tacit involvement in it [or else why should he wish to be hanged] and the asseveration of Haresh Bhatt, Anil Patel and Dhawal Jayanti Patel of their evil deeds; they [the courts and the Commission}have to define what is smuggling, can any individual or organization take the laws in their hands to mete out punishment for smuggling, who have smuggled arms; their party affiliation and should the election in Gujarat go ahead as if nothing has happened.


What I had written in newspaper columns on May 6, 2007has relevance here:


“The proverbial iceberg tip in the Sohrabbudin and Kauser bi Sheikh, and Tulsiram Prajapati murder in Gujarat will become quite ominous to our national life in the days to come. What with state elections due there and elsewhere. To the truly national minded it sends a chill of apprehension down the spinal cord. From all accounts including the ones that the Rajasthan government has purportedly collected to save its Inspector Dinesh, Sohrabuddin and Prjapati were as much criminal as many others, including BJP MP from Dahod, Gujarat, Babubhai Katara [accused in smuggling people into the US and Europe], and his son Bhavesh who is accused of killing Muslims in the post Godhra carnage and the last election. ..
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“Sohrabbudin and Prajapati were taken out of the Hyderbad Sangli bus. Kauser climbed down the bus in protest, the cops told her to go back into the bus. When she didn’t they took away her as well. The fiery burial that police inspector DG Vanjhara gave to Kauser is most macabre and the disposal of the ash most saturnine. A glimpse of the state sponsorship of pogroms is also here. Traffic was stopped for arresting and carrying dead body of Kauser, crane was used to haul out of mud the car carrying the dead body. Anti Terrorist Squad purchased 400 kg wood to burn the body. Ala Modi, everything was done for a noble cause: patriotism. Precisely this justification has the potential to polarize the country again. Mark the gathering and shouting of slogans of the burly members of the Vanjhara community in the court of the metropolitan magistrate on May 2, but mark more how the Chief Minister, as a true Machiavellian, is reportedly instructing his cadres to exploit the murders in the coming polls.”