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Phone records told ghastly tale of
genocide
Top
police officers squirm in India
as genocide probe moves ahead; one arrested
WSN Network
 AHMEDABAD: SEVEN
YEARS AFTER the death tandav of Hindutva in western Indian state of
Gujarat,
law is catching up. After the widespread genocide of Muslims under
the watch of Hindutva's mascot BJP Chief Minister Narendra Modi in
2002, a Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) is
now using massive phone records unearthed and investogated first by
the media to arrest the first police officer.
Large sections
of the human rights movement and liberal political domain think the
Gujarat
riots would have been impossible if
India had set an
example in acting against the guilty of the 1984 anti-Sikh genocide.
The SIT had
reopened 10 of the most serious cases of communal killings after
riots broke out on
February 28,
2002 and had collected records of cell phone calls between
politicians and police officers during the worst moments of the
violence. These records are being used by the SIT to nail
contradictions in the statements made under oath by police and
politicians before the Nanavati-Shah Commission about their presence
and movements during the communal frenzy.
Deputy
Superintendent of Police K.G. Erda, the first police officer to be
arrested for allegedly abetting the rioters, was found to have
registered a false FIR about the Gulbarg Society massacre of 42
people, including former MP Ehsan Jafri.
Erda, who is the
complainant in the case, said in the FIR that a mob of 15,000 to
20,000 people attacked the small housing colony and he fired 60
rounds to disperse the mob. But SIT found that none from the mob had
suffered any injuries from a police bullet.
Records of
Erda’s cellphone (9825116222) reveal he was at the spot during the
killings. He was “waiting for police help to arrive”, he later told
the commission under oath. The SIT also found the 15 policemen who
were with Erda in his official vehicle had not been provided any
weapons.
The only
injuries suffered by a few members of the mob were from bullets
fired by Jafri in self-defence when no police help came despite his
frantic calls to then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner P.C. Pande and
Joint Commissioner of Police M.K. Tandon, SIT has found.
The SIT, and
what it used to nail
The SIT was set
up by the Supreme Court last year after the
Gujarat
government had closed more than 2,000 riot cases, including the
gruesome Naroda-Patiya and Gulbarg Society killings.
A set of CDs
containing mobile phone records of all calls made in Ahmedabad
during the 2002 Gujarat riots, ignored by at least one probe panel
but preserved by an IPS officer, is now helping the Supreme
Court-appointed Special Investigation Team in the reinvestigation of
these ten worst riot cases.
While the
Justice G T Nanavati Commission, probing the Godhra incident and the
post-Godhra riots, declined to consider the mobile phone records on
the ground that it could be legally challenged, the Justice U C
Banerjee Commission, which went into the Godhra attack, took note of
the details but did not place it on record. The SIT has taken full
cognizance of these CDs without questioning their authenticity.
In November
2004, leading Indian daily, The Indian Express, had first
highlighted the mobile phone details showing whop spoke to whom and
for how long during the February 25, 2002 (two days before the
attack on the Sabarmati Express) to March 4.
The media
investigated that the top police officers were in touch with some of
the riot-accused, that BJP MLA Maya Kodnani and VHP leader Jaydeep
Patel — both have now been declared absconders — were in the
riot-hit areas at the time of the massacres, and that top police
officers knew ex-Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was being burnt but did
nothing to help him.
IPS officer
Rahul Sharma, now a DIG with the CBI (Economic Offences) in Mumbai,
had submitted copies of the CDs to the SIT in June 2008 when he was
called to depose. As DCP (Control Room) in Ahmedabad, he had tracked
the phone records and compiled them in CDs.
“I had submitted
copies of these CDs before the Justice Nanavati and Justice Banerjee
inquiry commissions. This was the third set of copies I had with
me,” Sharma said in his statement to the SIT.
The SIT has
relied heavily on the interpretation of the data in the CDs. “It
took us almost six months to analyse this huge data. It was on the
basis of these findings that we got a clear picture of who was where
on
February 28, 2002 and we prepared questionnaires for the accused and
suspects accordingly,” said an SIT officer who did not wish to be
identified.
In October 2004,
Sharma, appearing before the Nanavati Commission, caused a stir when
he took out copies of the CDs from a bag and placed it before the
panel. Shunted to
Surat after the
riots, Sharma kept a copy of the CDs. “The Nanavati Commission never
used these CDs as a piece of evidence. Part I of the report which
was tabled in the state Assembly last year makes no mention of these
CDs,” said Mukul Sinha, advocate for rights group Jan Sangharsh
Manch.
In 2005, Sharma
submitted copies of the CDs to the Banerjee Commission. “Since the
inquiry commission focused only on the Godhra carnage, these
records, which mainly contained calls made in and around Ahmedabad,
were not of much use to the Commission though it did take note of
these CDs,” said the SIT officer.
11 February 2009
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