Naroda Patiya: 2 Muslim officers responsible for massacre as they obeyed senior authorities: Sreekumar

By TCN News,

Ahmedabad: Retired DGP R. B. Sreekumar has held two Muslim police officers responsible for Naroda Patiya massacre of 2002. In letters circulated to media persons on the basis of his deposition before Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team(SIT), he alleged that hundreds of Muslims from Naroda Patiya had sought refuge in the adjoining Special Reserve Police(SRP) camp when the armed mobs began attacking them on February 28, 2002, but they were turned away by the commandant Khurshid Ahmed and his junior Qureshi.

Sreekumar said that the two Muslim officers were subsequently given promotion for their obedience to senior authorities and BJP leaders. Ahmed is an IPS officer hailing from Bihar, Qureshi belongs to Gujarat and is from the Gujarat Police Service.

Sreekumar, who earned the wrath of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and was superseded by his juniors for not toeing the government line, said that despite his orders the gates of the SRP camp were not opened by Ahmed and Qureshi for the Muslims seeking shelter and resultantly, 109 of them were massacred by the armed mobs looking for the Muslims.

Sreekumar in the letter has said that at 10.30 a.m. on February 28, 2002, he received a message from Ahmed saying that more than 500 Muslims from Naroda Patiya were knocking at the doors of the SRP camp seeking shelter because they were being chased by the armed and violent mob. Sreekumar, who was Additional Director General Police(armed unit, SRP) at that time ordered Ahmed to allow the refugees in the camp and provide them protection. Subsequently, he also faxed a message to Ahmed, confirming his orders. “But both the officers, Ahmed and Qureshi, were shaky and worried allowing Muslim refugees inside the SRP camp. So, I told them that in case anybody questioned them, they could explain they were complying with ADGP’s written orders. Later, the state government claimed that the two Muslims officers saved 500 Muslims by sheltering them in the SRP camp’’, the letter said.

Sreekumar claims in the letter that he later on learnt that the SRP camp’s gates were not opened for Muslims under pressure from higher authorities and more than 100 of the refugees were killed by the mob in front of the camp. He also claims that many women were gang-raped and killed and their bodies dumped in a nearby well.

Sreekumar said that Ahmed was later on rewarded by the government. He was posted as Deputy Commissioner of Police in Surat city, a prize posting for SP level officers as Surat is a very prosperous city owing to diamond and textile trade. According to Sreekumar, Ahmed’s wife Shamina Hussain, an IAS officer was posted as District Development Officer (DDO) in neighbouring rich Valsad district.

“There are practically no instances of Muslim officers, that too belonging to outside states, getting such prize postings’’, the letter said.

As for Qureshi, Sreekumar said that “he was also promoted as commandant and given the second medal for distinguished service which is rarely awarded to SRP officers’’.

Sreekumar says in the letter that there was ample evidence with SIT for prosecution of Modi and other officials who together conspired in post-Godhra riots but SIT was reluctant in doing much about it.