Trials and Tribulations

Press Release

The Trials and Tribulations of the Past Seven Years

          Seven Years back, on 27th February,around 8.30am in the morning, Mohamad Hussein Kalota , the then President of the Godhra Municipality was preparing to go to Gandhinagar to  discuss with the Government about some problems of his Municipality. He received a telephone call from Godhra Police to go to the Godhra Station as there was some communal problem. Kalota and his councilor Haji Bilal rushed to the Station and met the Godhra DSP Raju Bharghav. S6 coach of Sabarmati Express was on fire and Haji Bilal did everything to get water from a nearby well to douse the fire as the fire brigade tankers had run out of water. But Bharghav told them to go away as the passengers were getting agitated in seeing two Muslims there….

           Seven years later, we find Kalota and Haji Bilal still behind the bars with 78 more Muslims who are amongst the 116 persons arrested by Police under POTA for carrying out a “Preplanned Terrorist act” that was allegedly hatched by the accused to kill 59 karsevaks! Till now, 13 accused have been discharged, 19 released on bail and 4 are dead.

           Seven years later, we now have the Division Bench of High Court confirm the decision of the Central Review Committee holding that there was no preplanned Terrorist Conspiracy involved in the burning of the S6 coach and POTA could not have been invoked by the Police. The Supreme Court has refused to grant any stay order against this Judgment of Gujarat High Court.

           Seven Years back if the Chief Minister and his Police had not falsely invoked POTA in the Godhra incident and had not instigated the ordinary people of Gujarat by describing the Godhra incident as a preplanned terrorist attack of one community against the other, the genocide that followed from 28th would have never happened.

          Now that the truth of Godhra is finally emerging, time has come to appeal for a peace and amity between the two communities who are inseparable in this country. But peace and amity will be meaningful only if the guilty are brought to justice. Those who are responsible for subjecting the victims of the violence and also the people of Gujarat through such trials and tribulations and shaming the State must not go unpunished. To begin with therefore, the authorities and the Police officers who maliciously imposed POTA must be punished under section 58 of the POTA which reads as under:

“58. Punishment and compensation for malicious action.-(1) Any police officer who exercises powers corruptly or maliciously, knowing that there are no reasonable grounds for proceeding under this Act, shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.”

Shri Noel Pamar and his supervising Officers who imposed POTA therefore must be tried under section 58 of POTA and in the meantime, the extension granted to the service of Shri Noel Parmar should be terminated.

         Seven Years later, the fresh reinvestigation by SIT is also throwing up several names who were allegedly involved with the violence that followed. Though SIT is yet to unravel the main conspiracy and the conspirators that had carried out the organized killings from 28th onwards, BJP MLAs, Corporators, VHP leaders, Police officers are getting arrested in the cases of Naroda Patiya, Gulberg, Naroda Gam etc. Once again some truth is emerging regarding the State sponsored violence that killed nearly a thousand people and over 200 went “missing”. After seven years, the figure of the people dead would go up since now there would a presumption of the those missing to be dead as they went missing due to the violence.

         From the above two developments in the past seven years, namely     (1) the false imposition of POTA in the Godhra case and (2) the involvement of the ruling party members and Police officers in the violence, a serious question would arise regarding the appointment of the Nanavati Commission. After seven years and expending of crores of tax payers money, has this commission brought out the truth? Till now, in the Part-I report, Godhra has been described as a preplanned terrorist conspiracy and the Chief Minister has been given a clean chit in Paragraph 229!Both these conclusions directly contradict the Gujarat High Court Judgment and the SITs findings! As the Commission has thus lost its efficacy, we demand its immediate scrapping.

        At the end of the seventh year therefore, we do see some light at the end of the tunnel. The appointment of SIT by the Supreme Court has given rise to hopes amongst all and the Chairman Shri Raghavan has an onerous task ahead of him. Truth and Justice can bring peace and SIT has to unravel the actual conspiracy that resulted in the mass killing. Faster this truth comes out the quicker we can get out of this suffocating tunnel that started with Godhra. We appeal to Shri Raghavan to take appropriate permission of the Apex Court to induct upright officers like Rahul Sharma in the SIT who had furnished the mobile phone call data that has resulted in the identification of the culprits. This would speed up the investigations and end the agony!

Mukul Sinha

Chairman, JSM