By Sayema Sahar,
Despite the availability of direct circumstantial evidence against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 63 others, SIT still needs legal help to conclude whether the evidences collected so far are prosecutable.
It is important to note that the accused figuring in Zakia Jafri FIR includes the Chief Minister, other Ministers, Assembly Speaker, and some serving and retired Senior officers.
In the Gulberg Society incident in 2002, some 69 persons including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri were killed. Mrs Zakia Jafri stands an eyewitness to this gruesome act.
Records show that Ehsan Jaffri made nearly 200 calls for assistance; some of these were to the police control room. At that time cabinet ministers Ashok Bhatt and IK Jadeja were in the control room, yet Jaffri was killed. Some 69 Muslims were burnt or hacked to death over a period of 11 hours at Gulbarg Society. There are witnesses, hours and hours of phone call records for help but no help came for the residents of Gulbarg Society.
Officers like Sanjiv Bhatt kept informing the CM, the commissioner of police about the attack but it went unheard.
The SIT wholly failed to inquire into/investigate the circumstances in which repeated calls for police assistance went unheeded. SIT is on its last lap of finalizing its report on the 2002 carnage.
In one of the last ditch efforts the whistle blower cop Sanjiv Bhatt on Wednesday urged SIT chief Dr. Raghvan through his letter that the SIT should seek to prosecute Narendra Modi in the Gulbarg Society case.
Further in his letter Mr. Bhatt also advised SIT that acts of commission and omission on part of the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in Gulberg Society case tantamount to abetment of gruesome carnage, thereby he should be charged under provisions of Section 107 (abetment to crime) of IPC.
Officer Bhatt in his previous communication to the investigating agencies has shared fax messages which he had sent to the CM, and the commissioner of police informing them of the mob mobilization outside the Gulbarg Society and requesting them for help.
Officer Bhatt also suggested that Modi would be liable to be charged under sections 109, 112, 115, 117, 118 and 119 of the Indian Penal Code(IPC).
Reiterating what he had already told to SIT and the Amicus Curiae Raju Ramachandran, Bhatt stated in his letter, by the time of second meeting that he claimed to have had with the Chief Minister on February 28, 2002, the carnage at Gulbarg Society had begun in full view of the police personnel who were deployed there for bandobust duties.
Excerpts from Sanjiv Bhatt’s letter:
“The Gujarat CM was accordingly briefed about the police inaction and complicity. He was informed about the threat to the life of ex-MP Ehsan Jafri and his family,” said officer Bhatt in the letter.
“Surprisingly, on conclusion of second meeting, the Chief Minister instructed me to find out details regarding the past instances wherein Ehsan Jafri had supposedly opened fire on Hindus, during earlier communal riots in Ahmedabad City,” Bhatt claimed in the letter.
“I was informed by control room and other State Intelligence Bureau sources stationed at Gulbarg Society, that a few minutes ago Ehsan Jafri had opened fire on a riotous mobs,” Bhatt stated.
“This makes it clear that the Chief Minister was fully aware of the on-going carnage and was independently getting real-time information updates on the developments taking place at Gulbarg Society”, he stated.
“Later, I was told to collect details regarding past offences registered against Ehsan Jafri, which was followed by a similar telephonic request from cabinet minister Ashok Bhatt who was stationed at Ahmedabad City Control Room, by the Chief Minister,” Bhatt stated.
“All this, absolutely makes it clear that the Chief Minister Narendra Modi was not interested in directing the police to act with firmness to protect the life and property of helpless citizens. Instead, at the time of gory carnage, he (CM) sought to condone the police inaction,” he stated.
The Supreme Court of India had ordered the SIT “to take steps as required in Law”, yet SIT is perplexed whether or not to prosecute the perpetrators of the bloodbath of 2002.
The fact that this can happen even with the apex court keeping a sharp eye on these investigations speaks volumes about the Gujarat state’s adherence to constitutional governance or lack thereof.
Sanjiv Bhatt’s letter dated 25th Jan. 2012
(The writer is a Delhi-based journalist, can be contacted on [email protected])