Myth of Clean Chit: Gujarat Carnage and Narendra Modi

Ram Puniyani

In a recently televised interview the Vice-President of Indian National Congress, Rahul Gandhi (Jan 2014) raised the storm when he said that some Congressmen might have been involved in 1984 Sikh Massacre and that Narendra Modi has a blame to take for the Gujarat carnage of 2002.

There were multiple responses to this interview. Already Arvind Kejriwal had promised to set up SIT into Anti Sikh violence of 1984 even before elections. Now his Government seems to be taking it up more seriously and it is likely that a SIT will be formed to investigate the Delhi tragedy. One can say that it may be too late by now as lot of valuable evidence might have been lost or destroyed. Still whatever of process of law can be retrieved, should be saved and justice should be done to victims of Delhi. It goes without saying that the justice should be done to the victims of communal violence irrespective of the fact as to which religious community they belong to. The Kashmiri Pundits also need to be given required justice and rehabilitation even today. The tendency to flaunt Kashmiri pundits or anti Sikh massacre, after every talk of justice to violence victims of Gujarat or any other place is an attempt to deflect the attention from issue on hand.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Violence against one religious community can’t give justice to another religious community which has been wronged. On the same level to turn a blind eye to the atrocities on Muslim minorities in India because Hindus are being persecuted in Pakistan or Bangla Desh is totally inhuman and vice versa. Justice should be demanded for all religious minorities, in all the countries, all the time. Tolerating injustice at one place is like tolerating injustice everywhere.

In response to Rahul Gandhi’s comments on Gujarat, the BJP spokespersons lashed out that Modi has been given clean chit by SIT in Gujarat and also by the court of law, by legal process. This is a false propaganda. Right from the beginning of Gujarat violence, the comments of National Human rights commission indict Modi for his role in orchestrating Gujarat Violence. Though Special Investigation team (SIT) commented that there is no case against Modi, in the findings of SIT, there has been a strong element which indicts Modi for his acts of commission and omission. The apologists of Modi will point that in Delhi the military was not called for three days, while forgetting that in Delhi violence was contained in three days and in Gujarat process of violence went on unabated till May 2002, starting from 27th February. This stoppage of violence in Gujarat could happen only when the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee sent K.P.S. Gill as the special officer to overlook the control of violence in Gujarat. Modi personally got adverse comments all through, right from the beginning as his role was too glaring to be undermined at any stage of time.

In the initial period the Hon’ble Supreme Court first pulled up the State government and observed “The Nero’s in Gujarat fiddled as Gujarat burned” (http://teestasetalvad.blogspot.in/2013/12/we-will-soldier-on-zakia-jafri-case.html). Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee had to reprimand Modi that Raj Dharma should be followed. The type of atmosphere created in Gujarat resulted in Supreme Court asking for shifting of the two major cases away from Gujarat, as an intimidating atmosphere was created in Gujarat due to Modi’s high handedness. Even after the latest judgment of the Magistrate’s Court, the human rights’ activists Mallika Sarabhai was forthright to comment, “Silly to have expected anything else but clean chit for Narendra Modi from a Gujarat court.”

Even the interpretation of the report of SIT is fallacious. Supreme Court had appointed the SIT and also Amicus curiae, Raju Ramchandran. To say that SIT gave a clean chit to Modi is not true. The fact is that the SIT in its 2010 report clearly said: In spite of the fact that ghastly and violent attacks had taken place on Muslims at Gulberg Society and elsewhere, the reaction of the government was not the type that would have been expected by anyone. The chief minister had tried to water down the seriousness of the situation at Gulberg Society, Naroda Patiya and other places by saying that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Ramu Ramchandran based on same report pointed out that there is enough evidence in the SIT report to prosecute Modi.

One recalls that NHRC much before all this had concluded its report 31.5. 2002 and said that “there was a comprehensive failure of the State to protect the Constitutional rights of the people of Gujarat” Amicus Curiae in his final report, recommended the prosecution of Narendra Modi under Sections 166 and 153a and 153b of the Indian Penal Code. So where is the clean chit? If we see three major factors, The National Human Rights commission has indicted Modi. Second, based on SIT observations Supreme Court appointed Amicus Curiae holds that Modi can be prosecuted. Third, the process of justice through Courts in Zakia Jafri has begun. After the Court verdict Ms Jafri said that she will appeal to the higher courts. Our process of justice begins with Magistrates Court, does not end with that. Proclaiming that Modi has been given a ‘clean chit’ for his role in Gujarat carnage is far from truth. It’s a clever propaganda, which has been dished out with a deliberate purpose.

At another level, Modi acolytes, Babu Bajrangi and Maya Kodnani are in jails for their role in the carnage. The Tehelka sting shows the collusion between the Babu Bajrangi clan and the state led by Modi. The tribunal set up by Citizens for Justice and Peace with eminent jurists like P.B.Sawant also outlined Modi’s role in a very clear manner. There has been some justice in few cases of Gujarat. And that is due to yeomen struggle for justice launched by the victims and human rights defenders. The process of justice needs to be pursued. The state of Gujarat has created all possible obstacles in the justice being given to the victims. The claims of clean chit hold no water, we need to look beyond the propaganda and the truth will show the blood tainted hands of Modi.

(Response only to ram.puniyani@gmail.com)

A stalking State of Affairs

The Lives of Others!

-Sheeba Aslam Fehmi

“In 1984 East Germany, Stasi officer Hauptmann Wiesler is assigned to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman. Wiesler and his team bug the apartment, set up surveillance equipment in an attic and begin reporting Dreyman's activities. Wiesler soon learns the real reason behind the surveillance: Minister of Culture Bruno Hempf covets Dreyman's girlfriend, actress Christa-Maria Sieland, and is trying to eliminate his rival Dreyman. While Grubitz (Wiesler's boss) sees an opportunity for advancement in his career, Wiesler (an idealist) is horrified. Through his surveillance, he knows Dreyman and Sieland are in love”...

Now cut-paste the events unrolling since 15^th Nov. 2013 India, in the plot here. Fortunately, the woman Mansi Soni aka ‘Madhuri’ has not thrown herself before a speeding vehicle like Sieland did in the movie, but the crumbling down of the nasty and vengeful State apparatus is thrown before a full public view in the state of Gujarat.

It is an unsettling eerie feeling... while trying to file a ‘desk-story’ on India’s highest profiled ‘Stalking crime case’, as a private person it sends shudders down the spine, as I go through the details of the stalking and snooping of a young woman by three highly professional agencies of the government AND an independent, more stringent surveillance system of the Chief Minister himself.

A minute to minute tracking, surveillance, stalking, phone tapping and embed police personnel with the girl, carried out by the CID Intelligence, Crime Branch and Anti-Terrorist Squad of Gujarat State amounted to just ‘giving protection to a young woman’, on the basis of her father Pranlal Soni’s request to an ‘old family friend Narendra Modi the Chief Minister’. But when you ask where the ‘request letter of the father’ is, where the threat assessment report is, where the official orders to the three professional agencies to carry out this surveillance is, where the final report of the two month long operation is? The answer is a loud mum!

The ‘Ahmadabad Mirror’ reports about the real reason that started-off a trail of more than two months long stalking, snooping and spying by three agencies of the State as-  “A missed call to a cell phone, its number ending with the digits ******3400, purportedly led to the illegal surveillance of a young woman architect.
News portals Cobra Post and Gulail that burst the story claimed on Friday that the surveillance was ordered in 2009 by Narendra Modi’s close aide and the-then Gujarat minister of state for home, Amit Shah.
Though his identity remains undisclosed, the 24/7 surveillance was allegedly carried out at the behest of a certain “Saheb.” Inquiries by this newspaper reveal that eight Gujarat cops were involved in the surveillance that lasted sixty-two days.
At the centre of this op was IPS officer G L Singhal who was then Amit Shah’s confidant, but who has since fallen out with him. Both men, accused in different cases, are at present out on bail.
While Amit Shah is an accused in the Sohrabuddin killing, Singhal is an accused in the Ishrat Jahan encounter killing though the CBI failed to charge him within the stipulated 90 days.
Despite his proximity to Shah in those days, IPS officer Singhal, who led the surveillance on the young woman, kept a set of recording of his conversations with Amit Shah.
In June this year he submitted 267 clips of these conversations detailing the progress of the tailing op to the CBI to verify his charges against Shah. Aseries of interviews with sources close to the development revealed that the woman in question first met “Saheb” in 2005 when she designed a hill garden as part of government effort to rebuild quake-ravaged Bhuj.
She was introduced to him by thethen district collector Pradeep Sharma who has since emerged as a key figure in this affair. Impressed by her work, “Saheb” complimented her and called her again after he had returned to his office in another city.
Within a few weeks professional admiration led to a deepening bond. “Saheb” gave the architect his personal cell number (ending with ******3400) on which she could access him any time. At the height of their acquaintance she and “Saheb” allegedly spoke to one another eighteen times a day.

The woman shared the story of her proximity to “Saheb” with her friend and Bhuj district collector Pradeep Sharma who had introduced her to “Saheb” in the first place. She also allegedly showed him some of the text messages that she had received from “Saheb’s” private number.
Sharma reportedly saved this number. Eventually problems cropped up in her and “Saheb’s” relationship on account of his alleged possessiveness and his insistence on maintaining a public stance that she was like his daughter.
Pradeep Sharma came to know of this and one day in 2009 he audaciously called “Saheb’s” private number that he had secretly saved. The call went unanswered but “Saheb’s” suspicions were roused. Who was this person who had his personal number? He asked for call details and found it was Sharma.
That missed call was to irrevocably alter “Saheb’s” equation with the young woman. Sharma’s number was kept under observation leading to the revelation that Sharma and the young woman were in regular touch with one another.
According to sources, this was when Amit Shah allegedly ordered the illegal surveillance on the architect. “Saheb,” it seems, wanted to know everything about her. Where she went, what she said, what she did, and most importantly, whom she met, claims the Cobra Post-Gulail investigation.
Singhal led this operation. As mentioned earlier, he kept copies of audio recording of his conversations with the home minister. This June, he submitted some of those audio clips to the Central Bureau of Investigation and they have been included as part of the CBI’s panchnaama in the Ishrat Jahan case.

PAID A PRICE
Pradeep Sharma was soon paying the price for his indiscretion. The government of Gujarat filed four criminal complaints against him. He was suspended and later jailed. The 62-day surveillance ended after the woman agreed to get married and leave Gujarat.
On Friday the woman’s father said that it was he who had asked the chief minister of Gujarat, an old family friend, to take care of his daughter who had come to Ahmedabad from Bangalore and had to commute at odd hours owing to his wife’s hospitalization in those days.
His daughter’s relationship with the CM, he said, was like that of father and daughter. For his part Amit Shah refused to respond to calls and text messages and Singhal, when we got through to him, refused to comment on the matter saying it was under investigation.
Father says no to probe
The father of the young woman in the midst of the snooping row wrote to the NCW and the Gujarat State Commission for Women stating that his request to Modi to keep an eye on his daughter was done with her knowledge."It is an earnest wish of my daughter that no further probe (in the snooping issue) is necessary as being politically demanded," he said in his letter.
"My daughter is an architect and an educated person. She is married and deeply perturbed by the intrusion upon her personal life and privacy. To ensure her anonymity, she has requested me to write this letter to the honourable NCW," he said.
Row intensifies
The heat from the snooping scandal intensified with suspended IAS officer Pradeep Sharma requesting the Supreme Court to take note of it.
He said this was necessary as audio tapes related to the scandal uploaded on news websites contained evidence that the Modi government tried to frame him in "frivolous" cases.
Sharma, a 1984 batch Gujarat cadre IPS officer is facing five criminal cases in connection with alleged irregularities in the allotment of land to private firms in Kutch in 2008. He last served as Bhavnagar Municipal commissioner.
In 2011, he moved the SC demanding a CBI probe into all cases against him, claiming that he was being targeted by the Modi government.
On Tuesday, Sharma's counsel Prashant Bhushan told a bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam that Sharma wanted to file an additional application in support of his claim that the Gujarat government tried to frame him. An important development had taken place since the last hearing, Bhushan said, referring to the snooping scandal.
The bench asked Sharma to file a formal application after the Gujarat government counsel took objection to an oral statement being made in court. The court fixed December 3 to hear the matter again.
Bhushan told reporters later that his written plea to be filed by the end of this week would demand a CBI probe into the illegal snooping. Sharma had also claimed that he was being targeted by the chief minister in a January 2011 letter to the chief secretary of Gujarat.
"I believe that the motivation behind and the execution of the arrest are consisting (sic) with confirming the fears of Shri Narendra Modi that I may be in possession of incriminating evidence against the chief minister. My arrest was a manifestation of Modi's personal and political agenda," Sharma said in the letter.
The IAS officer has also accused the Modi government of targeting him because his younger brother Kuldip Sharma, a senior IPS officer in Gujarat, had 'unmasked' Modi's alleged misdeeds after the post-Godhra riots.
"In order to cause prejudice to Kuldip Sharma, the petitioner (Pradeep Sharma) has been victimised by chief minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah," his petition in the SC states.”

The Defence forwarded by the BJP in the stalking-snooping case is so weak that even a kid can see through the false claims of giving ‘protection’ to the target here. Please check these websites:
http://www.cobrapost.com/index.php/news-detail?nid=3968&cid=23  or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roVZrT2_xuc

Amit Shah: Singhal, did you check ?
G.L. Singhal: Sir our men have reached there. No movement reported as yet.
Amit Shah: Check whether they are there or not?
G.L. Singhal: Actually we also tried to lay a trap at night pretending to be calling from a travel agency and asked whether a guest called Nancy D’Souza is staying in that room ? But they confirmed that no one with that name is staying with them but they told that someone called —– is staying in that room. But that girl is so clever that when she was returning from the airport someone gave her a missed call then she called back on that number and started asking who has called.

The concocted alibi that Mansi Soni was being given protection falls flat due to the fact that the whole video is full of indignant, disrespectful and menacing comments about the character and intentions (see boxes of excerpts from the conversation) of the so-called niece of the CM and the one who is to be protected on the ‘friendly’ behest of her father Pranlal Soni who claims that the family knew CM Modi for more than two decades.

But the question is can the father prove his old relationship with Narendra Modi? Because Pradeep Sharma says he introduced the girl to Modi. The taped conversation is an irrefutable proof that Praveen Sharma was victimised. 'Put him away for more time than Vanzara'. Therefore one can sort of assume that Pradeep Sharma is true about the introduction - his words now being given more credence in light of his confirmed victimisation. The Supreme Court is seized of this aspect and has allowed a plea by Prashant Bhushan for admitting fresh evidence in the Pradeep Sharma case.

The father Pranlal Soni , a key figure who came in to rescue Modi, has requested National Commission for Women not to start any action since it was he only who requested this kind of severe snooping for his daughter’. The point is that NCW must take strong note of a father who is snooping into the private life of his adult daughter.

It is to be noted that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is a married man. Therefore his extra-marital alliances should be of general concern, but this is much more than that. He is a husband who ran away from his marital obligations and abandoned his wife for all these years. His new personal liaison is awarded projects in the name of beautification of the state. He keeps the personal affair under the duress but uses State machinery to snoop and make her life hell. He fooled the public on his amorous liaison since he was 65 and she was 32! More years separated them than she had lived on the planet hence the compulsion to carry on ‘father-daughter’ facade before the masses. The sponsoring party BJP must realise that a man of such character and integrity, who creates havoc in the lives of others cannot be the Prime Minister of a country of 1.2 billion citizens.

What is reassuring about today’s Congress-I!

--Sheeba Aslam Fehmi

Editor- MISSION

08/01/2014 

There may be numerous complaints against Congress led UPA-I&II, regarding the issues of economy, policy implementation, governance, inflation etc. but one fact that is reassuring for the minorities of India is that none of it is targeted against minorities in particular. The anomalies are secular and creed-blind. Compare it with the Gujarat since Feb 2002 to this date- targeted killings, maiming, lynching, arson, loot, gang rapes, witch-hunting through state police/intelligence, arrests, fake encounters, fake terrorist attacks, fake intelligence reports indicting Muslims, continuity of refugee camps in the absence of compensation,  no resettlement of the displaced, non-compliance of Muslim specific schemes of Central government in response to the Sachar Committee findings; all this happening exclusively to the wretched Muslim minority in Gujarat since the ascendance of Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2001.

Narendra Modi claims of highest (?) rate of growth and good governance in Gujarat during his tenure, at the same time he evades the questions of Muslim victims of 2002 pogrom. His message is simple and loud that ‘yes the Gujarat model of growth and development sans the equity and justice to the minorities is the way to enforce and consolidate his Hindutwa base’. He has almost succeeded in making us believe that the Hindu majority of this multicultural country rejoices the partisan governance, complete absence of justice and  unfair treatment meted out to its minorities, but for the numerous game-spoilers like IPS Sanjeev Bhat, Advocate Mukul Sinha, Activist Teesta Setalvad, Danseuse Mallika Sarabhai, Journalist Ashish Khetan, Editors Shoma Chaudhury-Anirudh Bahal and numerous others who have been there as the safeguards to the rampant persecution of Muslims in the state of Gujarat and who were able to play their conscientious role because the Sonia Gandhi led UPA was there at the center.

As a North Indian-UP walla Muslim I have been brought up on the regular dose of anti-Congress-ism of my Communist parents. The tumultuous and uneasy days of Babri Masjid controversy in the late 80’s and the gory aftermath during RSS sympathiser PM Narasimha Rao’s (satirically regarded as BJP’s first PM of India) tenure primed the anti-Congress sentiment in almost every Muslim household of  India. The hatred towards PM Rao’s act of giving sufficient time to build a Temple at the demolition site is still fresh in the memories of Indian Muslims. However, the Congress High command Mrs. Sonia Gandhi’s ascent to the helm has been a healing effect due to her non-partisan politics. The national politics of Congress-I is far more secular in its approach during the leadership of Sonia Gandhi since 1998. For me, alike many other educated, concerned and secular Indians this fact trumps all other larger and lofty concerns of political economy, capitalism and working class revolution, for the time being.