By TCN Special Correspondent,
Ahmedabad: Yet another retired director general of police(DGP) has questioned the role of the police during the 2002 Gujarat communal riots resulting in the killing of about 2,000 persons, mostly Muslims.
In separate interviews given to print and electronic media in the last two days, R N Bhattacharya has said that the police did not perform its constitutional duties of being impartial and protecting the lives of people no matter to which caste, creed or community they belonged to. He said that the riots stretching over a period of about two months indicated that the then police leadership did not perform properly and effectively.
It was earlier R B Sreekumar who had submitted affidavits before the Nanavati Commission questioning the role of the ruling party politicians, senior bureaucrats and police officials in the riots.
Bhattacharya told mediapersons that there was no way that the riots could have spread and continued for a long time if the police leadership had performed its duties effectively.
Bhattacharya, who was DGP (Anti-Corruption) and President of the Gujarat IPS Officers Association during 2002 riots, said that it was because of the good police leadership at that time in Bhavnagar and Surat that no violence took place there. Some people there too tried to cause violence, but the then police leadership there brought it under control immediately.
He disagrees with those who say that police looked the other way because of the directions from top echelons of the government. Bhattacharya argues that if the then police leadership in Surat and Bhavnagar could prevent the riots in their respective areas, the riots could have been successfully prevented elsewhere as well had the police bosses there had acted effectively.
He said that police bosses had immense powers with them to force the subordinates to work properly and effectively. The failure of the police leaders to contain the violence certainly indicated their negative performance. “They failed to deliver what was expected from them’’, the former top cop said.
Regarding senior IPS official Sanjiv Bhatt who recently submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that Chief Minister Narendra Modi had directed police officials not to take action against Hindus during the riots, Bhattacharya said that Bhatt was a very reliable man. “I have worked with him and I found him very reliable’’, he pointed out.
He said that about a month or two after the riots, he had convened a meeting of the association where he got passed a resolution, asking the senior IPS officials to communicate to their subordinates working in the field to be totally impartial in dealing with the people.