Gujarat's guilty conscience

If there were lingering doubts that the communal riots in Gujarat in February/March 2002 were a state-sponsored pogrom, last week's series in the Indian Express should conclusively dispel them.

More to the point, if Chief Minister Narendra Modi is serious about attaching credibility to his claims of non-involvement in the riots, he has some serious work on hand in pinning responsibility and taking action against several senior police officers and local politicians who are clearly guilty of either complicity or grave errors of omission during the riots.

In the meticulously researched six-part series titled "Who called whom when Gujarat was burning?" journalist Stavan Desai has sifted through two CDs of some 5 lakh mobile phone records that were in the possession of the Nanavati-Shah Commission set up to investigate the riots.

The phone calls roughly cover the period immediately before and after the riots, and reveal some uncomfortable facts about the role of key police officers and local Sangh Parivar politicians.

The logs also suggest that several of these people have been less than truthful in their statements before the Nanavati-Shah Commission, and none of them could come up with answers to Desai's questions.

For instance, Joint Commissioner of Police M K Tandon told the Commission that he was informed of the violence in Naroda Patiya, one of the worst-hit areas, several hours after the rioting was over.

Yet the phone logs, which even indicate the towers from which the calls were transmitted, show that he was in constant touch with senior police officers in charge of Naroda and Gulbarg Society all through the two days of the worst rioting.

Gulbarg Society is where former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffrie was burnt alive with 37 others, despite several calls for help to senior police personnel and politicians.

More evidence of official indifference and perhaps complicity can be had from the phone logs of Police Commissioner P C Pande, who was in charge of the area in which the Gulbarg Society is located.

He held conversations during the riots with two politicians who have been accused of complicity in the killings""VHP general secretary Jaideep Patel and Nimesh Patel""and also moved out of the area when the rioting intensified.

Phone records have also contradicted Naroda BJP MLA Maya Kodnani's claims that she was not in Gandhinagar during the riots. Not only was Kodnani in situ, she made calls to senior police officials and top politicians, including Pravin Togadia. Significantly, a case of arson and looting against her was dropped for lack of evidence.

Perhaps the most worrying issue is the fact that these records have been in the Gujarat police's possession since April. Gujarat DGP A K Bhargav, who heads a 10-member team set up under Supreme Court orders to look into the 2,000-odd closed riot cases, thinks they are of no value except in tracing the movements of the accused.

The Indian Express investigations comprehensively contradict that assertion. If the state government chooses to turn a deaf ear to this ringing evidence, it would be hard to avoid the conclusion that there is a scandalous cover-up.