First albatross around the neck of PM Narendra Modi

Summary The events in Gujarat in 2002-03 show a well coordinated move highlighting the life of Modi in danger which created sympathy for him. Godhra fire, attack on Akshardham, fake encounter of Samir and assassination of Haren Pandya fall into the same pattern. The day he won the election the Supreme Court acquitted the 6 innocent Muslims accused in the Akshardham temple attack of September 24, 2002. The apex court justices A K Patnaik and V Gopala Gowda severely criticized Narendra Modi for not applying his mind when giving sanction to prosecute the accused in 2003. His decision was neither informed nor based on evidence. The question that now arises is what prompted him to do so? Will he repeat the same as Prime Minister of India in such a case or even worse than this one? It was the state sponsored policy of framing Muslims in acts of terrorism they had not committed. After their release following their acquittal in the Akshardham temple attack the five accused revealed to the world what would hasten the fate of Narendra Modi to its logical end, (of course, by and by.) Mohammad Saleem one of the five said that the police had asked him to choose in which case he would like himself to be accused: Godhra train burning, Harend Pandya assassination or Akshardham temple attack. “I had been working in Saudi Arabia for 13 years, when they picked me up alleging there was a problem with my passport. They beat me brutally — I still have scars on my back, and I suffered a fracture in my foot. They asked me which case I wanted to be charged under — Akshardham, Haren Pandya or Godhra. I did not know what to say.” [1]This is the clearest indication of Modi’s involvement because it was he who had accused involvement of Pakistan ISI in Godhra train burning without giving any proof and that too within hours of the burning of the train which UC Banerjee Commission found to be an accident and not sabotage. For this initial evil full move Godhra fire accident became a terrorist attack and in revenge he allowed the Hindus three days to wreak havoc on the minority Muslims. Haren Pandya attended the meeting at the official residence of the chief minister and revealed to the people’s tribune the substance of the instruction of the CM that Hindus must be allowed to vent their anger and police should not come in the way. Akshardham attack was staged to win sympathy for Modi, one of the endangered species of fire eater Hindutva leaders. For this was Samir Khan Pathan arrested within three days of the attack on the temple under the ruse that he was trained by ISI to assassinate Modi. Abdul Qaiyum Muftisaab Mohammed Bhai was accused of writing the letters found on the bodies of the two slain attackers: “For three days and nights, they made me copy a letter that they had given me. They (the police) would bring an expert each day to check whether I had copied it well. They would ask me to copy the turns and twists of the Urdu letters so that they looked exactly the same as in the letter. I was very afraid, and did what they told me to do. Then they claimed in court that I had written the letters.” Even after acquittal and back at home he still says that it is “mere release from prison; justice had been buried at every moment in these 11 years” he was in prison. Therefore what would happen when Modi is the Prime Minister of the country and such cases come up? That worries many that the prospect of more Muslims being pilloried will surely rise. The chief of NGO helping the innocent trapped in false terror charges says: “Supreme Court and judiciary is our last hope. The government and the media have been biased, and an atmosphere has been created in which every Muslim is seen as a terrorist.” A month after the Akshardham temple attack IPS officer Police Commissioner Chittrangan Singh wrote a letter in which he questioned the identity of two terrorists killed at Akshardham temple: “It has been mentioned in the FIR pertaining to the attack on Akshardham that the two dead accused had arrived from Peshawar and Lahore. It has been found that no evidence in this regard has been found in the probe till this date [October 22, 2002] by the ATS. Then, on the basis of what evidence was this fact written in the complaint on behalf of the state?”[2]It is ominous that the day Samir Khan Pathan was killed by the police the Commissioner had to write expressing doubt about the FIR about the two slain terrorists and also about Samir in the same letter. The letter shows that this officer chose to apply his mind to the FIR. He was an honest man in contrast to Modi who did not apply his mind in sanctioning the prosecution. Such acts of omission and commission on the part of Modi are of such strength and frequency that it easily makes him culpable and they militate against the false notion he has spun that the clean chits really establish him un-blameworthy. He lives in the make believe world of King Macbeth of Shakespeare that no man born of a woman could kill him and he would reign until the woods walk towards his fort. Macbeth was a military chief who had committed regicide and usurped the kingdom of the slain king. From Thane he rose to become the monarch. Modi was chief minister and now he is the Prime Minister. Indeed the plot thickened when in the following month after Akshardham, Samir Khan Pathan was brutally killed in a faked encounter. The attack on the temple was mounted by an “enemy nation” and in the next part of the FIR dealing with Pathan the country was named. The officers who were in league with DG Vanzara and hence Modi had changed the first paragraph of the acting Commissioner of Police Chittranjan Singh. Vanzara was the deputy commissioner and PP Pande the Joint Commission. They along with DGP K Chakravarthi were also involved in the conspiracy of silence surrounding the fake encounter and the terrorist attack cases. Pande, Vanzara, Singhal also were behind the other fake encounters viz, Ishrat Jahan, etc. As usual DG Vanzara and GL Singhal had been very active and equal participants and accused in the fake encounters, the genocide and also in the investigation of the attack on Akshardham. Modi sanctioned the prosecution he did not apply his mind to what he was doing because he was terribly biased against the Muslims. He toed the line of the US in fighting terrorism. When the American embassy was bombed a day before Akshardham attack, President George Bush remarked that his patience with the Indonesian government was wearing thin. The reason for his anger was that the list of suspects America had given was rejected by the Indonesian government. It was not cooperating with America’s war on terrorism. Only the previous year during 9/11 he had warned the world that in the war on terror you are either with us or against us. America suspected Al Qaeda. But David Wright Neville of Monash University in Australia believed that those behind Bali blasts carried out the attack to demonstrate that it was “archipelagic” in nature. They were capable of striking anywhere in Indonesia. That was the obvious message sent out. The president, Megawati Sukarnopoutri, of Indonesia was brought up in India and had imbibed secularism here. Even her name is a witness to the virtue of broadmindedness and impartiality. When she visited India in the aftermath of 2002 genocide in Gujarat she asked PM AB Vajpayee about it. He casually remarked “some trouble.” The matter ended there and then. But then the PM went to the Goa conclave of his Hindu party BJP and remarked that Muslims everywhere did not live with their neighbours well. This is how he generalized Godhra violence stigmatizing the whole community. A leader from his party, Giriraj Singh from Bihar, also remarked on May 15, 2014: “Since terrorism is a matter relating to the country and not to a community, why secular leaders remain silent when all persons arrested in terror cases belong to a particular community. Are there only a few to define religious non-discrimination? Is it not true that all the terrorists caught belong to one community? I am not saying that all the people in that community are terrorists but whoever is caught belongs to the same community.”[3] In the wake of the arrest of Yasin Bhatkal the chief minister of Bihar had declined to take custody of him for investigation by his police. The police from Delhi then took away Yasin to the capital. Here also the logic is either you are with us or against us. Darbhanga module of terrorists exists in Bihar, if you do not accept you are not with us! Nitish Kumar refused and Modi threatened him with revenge. Boudh temple attack followed. So did the attack in Modi’s Patna rally for which initially 4 accused Hindus were blamed. The two who died in the Akshardham temple attack could not be traced as to where from they were or their families. But the six accused Indians were tried by the media and condemned much before the trial of the case started in the court. Then the case came up in the trial court. Three were sentenced to death, one for life imprisonment and one for ten and another for 5 years in jail. Modi and his party benefited from the incident in the election three months later. As the three were waiting in the death row and the others languishing in jail a very important people’s tribunal on Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) was formed. Modi did not apply his mind to the tribunal’s findings in 2004, either. It consisted of Ram Jethmalani, Justice Suresh, Justice DK Basu KG Kannabrian. It found that (1) There was less than 2 % conviction of the people accused of the crime of terrorism. (2)They were all denied bail. (3)Their confession was the only proof. Gujarat topped the list in the country where almost all arrested and accused were from Muslim community. It was this that prompted Arundhati Roy to observe: “anti-terrorism laws are not meant for terrorists: they are for people the governments do not like.” That is the ethos of Gujarat. It has also been confirmed that the SC has taken note that the accused were taken into custody by Vanzara and Singhal even before the case was handed over to them. This is a gross violation of the procedures and Modi as his own home minister ought to have known and taken strict action against the duo. It also reveals that he had so successfully subverted the judicial system along with the police and intelligence wing that the cover up of Modi’s role in all these was coterminous with the development of the case. For why should then the High Court of Gujarat also confirm the death and imprisonment sentences on the innocent accused when the home minister had not applied his mind to the case? If the lower court had not discerned it the duty of the HC was to scrutinize the case instead of rubber stamping the case as confirmed. The failure of the police is even worse. While arresting the accused the police should have the intuition to know the genuineness of what the relatives were averring that their fathers or brothers or husbands were just innocent and they were being framed. The police should have taken the precaution to apply their intuition in the matter. The SC’s anguish can be gauged from what the learned judges AK and Gowda exclaim at: "the incompetence with which the investigating agencies had conducted the investigation of the case of such a grievous nature, involving the integrity and security of the nation"! "Instead of booking the real culprits responsible for taking so many precious lives, the police caught innocent people and imposed grievous charges against them which resulted in their conviction and subsequent sentencing." "We intend to take note of the perversity in conducting this case at various stages, right from the investigation level to the granting of sanction by the state government to prosecute the accused persons under POTA, the conviction and awarding of sentence. We, being the apex court, cannot afford to sit with folded hands when such gross violation of fundamental rights and basic human rights of the citizens of this country is presented before us." [4] Modi’s official residence was close to the temple. Hence the attack on the Akshardham was associated with ‘kill-Modi conspiracy.’ Chitrangan’s later part of the letter deals with Samir Khan murder by police. His mother Zainabbi had gone to Sabarmati Central Jail to meet her son. The police told her to go to Civil Hospital. But a neighbour rushed there to tell her that her husband was calling her home. Her son’s body was lying in the Civil Hospital. It was sent to Zainabbi’s house later in the day. Stavan Desai reported that Samir was accused of “kill-Modi conspiracy.”[5] His mother rejected the accusation:’ How was he going to kill the CM when there was no weapon found on him? With his bare hands? And if he was a terrorist, would we be living in a one-room house with some utensils and two pairs of clothes?’’ said Samir’s mother when media people went to her house on October 22, 2002 as the news spread that he was killed while trying to escape from the police. He was arrested from a bus station on September 27, 2002 on the charge that he had taken training in Pakistan and returned home to kill Modi. ‘My son doesn’t deserve this death. I admit he made some mistakes for which even I never forgave him. But this is too harsh a punishment for stealing vehicles and killing a police constable.’’ [6] Samir was transferred to judicial custody on October 16. This may have facilitated the police to kill him. The proximity of the attack on the temples and his arrest associated in the popular mind that there was indeed a conspiracy to kill Modi to avenge the genocide of Muslims. This revenge theory was easily picked from books on terrorism and applied repeatedly to drill the ordinary people in a false belief. But the autopsy report gave away the truth that he was shot two to three inches below his left temple from an elevated angle, two bullets one on the 6th and the 7th rib shot from close range, Dr Kiran Pansoria : Samir was shot point blank range, gunpowder on his shirt, burnt marks left by bullets, FIR says he offered to take the police to the garden where he had killed a cop in a brawl, the police took him there at mid night to recreate the scene, why should the cops do so when he was not arrested for the 1996 murder, the panchnama or registration of crimes gave names of witnesses from Amul Electricals but records show that on that day they did not work overtime at midnight. [7] Vanzara had blamed Samir as a Jaise Mohammad operative. Chitrangan wrote to DGP Chakravorty 10 points which raised doubts about the whole operation. A subsequent inquiry by the Human Rights and Social Justice of DCP office found that the letter was replaced by another with fewer points. On October 31, 2003 the case was transferred to CID. IK Yadav was deputy officer there. He found the above mentioned points and wrote a report which the cell of Human Rights and Social Justice supported. The ancient mariner in the famous English ballad by ST Coleridge started on a voyage when an albatross came and sat on the mast. It brought strong wind but the mariner shot it down and that brought disaster. He was wearing a cross which fell into the sea and instead there appeared the dead body of the bird of good omens hanging from his neck. Modi’s assuming office is marked by the first stricture against him by the Supreme Court while in office. What is ominous is he is accused of many such acts of omission and commission. Indeed in the case of Haren Pandya IBS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in charge of Modi’s security gave in writing that Modi may have been behind the murder. Malika Sarabhai, Sanjiv Bhatt and RB Sreekumar averred that Modi had order payment of 10 lakh rupees to Mallika’s lawyer as a bribe to sabotage the Naroda Patiya case. Pandya’s wife Jagruty went to Visakhapatnam where Asghar Ali [acquitted in the case of murder of her husband but found innocent after 8 years in jail]told her who it was (Tulisram Prajapati). There are many more such cases which call for an impartial inquiry for Modi to face. All the more so because the Modi regime in Gujarat also had a penchant for deshdrohis or traitors to the country whom the administration under him presumed to be only Muslims. Getting rid of them was what Vanzara called deshbhakti or patriotism. Modi’s chief secretary PK Mishra had intervened and asked Chitrangan to take back his letter because Samir Khan Pathan, the two slain at the temple and the six accused were the traitors. Modi had dubbed Sohrabuddin also as a traitor though the whole family of Sohrabuddin including him were supporters of BJP. Moreover he was involved in racketeering and extortion and worked under Amit Shah. There is no way for the Augean stables of Modi to be washed clean and now he is the PM! [1] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/gujarat/they-asked-me-to-choose-godhra-pandya-or-akshardham/ [2] http://www.tehelka.com/gujarat-police-fudged-probe-into-akshardham-police-letter-survives-to-tell-the-tale/ [3] http://www.deccanchronicle.com/140515/nation-politics/article/bjp-leader-giriraj-hate-speech-row-again [4] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Supreme-Court-pull-up-Gujrat-police-for-poor-investigation/articleshow/35315314.cms [5]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Supreme-Court-pull-up-Gujrat-police-for-poor-investigation/articleshow/35315314.cms [6] ‘He made mistakes but didn’t deserve this’ Indian Express October 23, 2002. [7] Indian Express, May 9, 2007.