Accused number 29: PC Pande, former commissioner of police, Ahmedabad

PC Pande, the former commissioner of police (CP), Ahmedabad, and later the DGP, Gujarat, who continues to enjoy special favour with the Modi dispensation, sent a confidential written communication to the then DGP, K. Chakravarti, on April 19, 2002. The letter implicates Bharat Barot, the then minister for food and civil supplies in the Gujarat government, as he directly instigated well-known gangsters of the Bajrang Dal and VHP to arson. Another such letter by the CP, written ten days later, was addressed to both DGP K. Chakravarti, and the then additional chief secretary (home), Ashok Narayan (accused numbers 25 and 28 respectively).
 

Both these letters were submitted to the Nanavati-Shah Commission in 2006 as appendices to the then ADGP, Mahapatra’s affidavit. Despite attempts by the commission to prevent copies of the letters from coming out, CJP managed to access the documents in 2006 itself and they were part of the Zakiya Jaffri petition in both the Gujarat high court and the Supreme Court.
 

On April 15, 2002, four days before Pande’s first letter to the DGP, a mob had gathered near the Amba Mata temple, near Kapadia High School outside Delhi Darwaja in Ahmedabad. This was at 9.30 a.m., in broad daylight. Bharat Barot, then a cabinet minister, drove up in a white private car, had a whispered confabulation with some members of the mob (named below) and drove off. As soon as he left, incidents of arson took place outside Delhi Darwaja and near Idgah Chowky.
 

The commissioner of police, Ahmedabad, while referring to this incident in the letter to his boss, the DGP, states that Harshad Panchal, Dipak Goradia and Dinesh Prajapati, all workers of the Bajrang Dal, were part of the mob. Pande, who was part of Narendra Modi’s major cover-up operation in 2002, also says that known leaders of the VHP and Bajrang Dal such as Raju Ravji Thakore, Kamlesh Babu Thakore, Bholiyo, Virambhai, Paresh Langdo and Mahendra Bachubhai were part of a mob that had launched attacks in the Madhavpura locality.
 

What steps did the police take? PC Pande, instead of booking the minister for incitement and abetment, politely requests his boss "to bring this matter to the knowledge of government" and to make arrangements to ensure that "Hon’ble ministers of government may not do (sic) such activity."
 

Yes, Pande does write the letter. But what more does he do? He keeps it under wraps until it is produced before the Nanavati-Shah Commission four years later.
 

Shielding extortion by the VHP/Bajrang Dal

Ten days later, on April 29, 2002, Pande makes other significant revelations in a second written communication, this one addressed to both Chakravarti and Ashok Narayan. This document, which was also accessed by CJP, was submitted to the Gujarat high court in 2007 as an annexure to the petition filed by Zakiya Jaffri and CJP, seeking directions from the court for registration of an FIR against Modi and 62 others. In 2008 it was also filed in the Supreme Court, in the litigation challenging the appointment of PC Pande as DGP of Gujarat.
 

In this letter, while reporting on the continued misbehaviour and criminal actions of the VHP and Bajrang Dal in Ahmedabad, Pande says "one and three quarter months (after the Godhra and post-Godhra violence) …when the situation in Ahmedabad is limping back to normal, some ugly activities are being carried out by parties that have the support of the government."

Why did the commissioner of police restrict himself to private pleas and in-house communications instead of acting to book the criminals for their illegal activities?
 

Specifically, he states that workers of the VHP and Bajrang Dal in Ahmedabad city were extorting money from businessmen under the pretext of providing them protection from the minority community. Though forced by the bullying tactics of the VHP and Bajrang Dal into paying out the amounts demanded, the businessmen had nonetheless complained about these illegal activities in public and also to the police.
 

Worse still, Pande also makes reference to complaints received by the police of threats faced by the minority community when they went to majority-dominated areas for work or work-related activities. Here too he says that the police had noted the active role played by workers of the VHP and Bajrang Dal.
 

(This from a man who suffered a sudden lapse of memory during his deposition before the Nanavati-Shah Commission and one who has protected the state government before and since.
 

Why does the commissioner of police restrict himself to private pleas and in-house communications instead of acting to book the criminals for their illegal activities?)
 

Pande also states in this letter that attempts were being made by criminals belonging to the VHP and Bajrang Dal to seize the properties of minorities after their homes had been destroyed by goons belonging to the majority community. He says that members of the minority community were not allowed to reclaim their properties and were being threatened if they did return.
 

Pande reveals all in confidential communications to his superiors but takes no steps to book the criminals, register complaints and protect the victims. He privately acknowledges the criminal activities of groups that enjoy the patronage of the top men in government as seen in these letters. He even appeals to the state government to stop their patronage and protection of criminal groups like the VHP and Bajrang Dal. Why does he do nothing more?

Archived from Communalism Combat,  May 2009 Year 15    No.140, Cover Story 3

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Over the past two years, major national dailies have frequently reported, with photographs, brazen at  tempts by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal (BD) to form private Hindu armies. Arms training camps have been organised by them  in different parts of the country, where young men and women are trained in the use of guns as well as trishuls, sword and other martial arts. 

Under the Indian Constitution, private militias arming themselves represent a threat to law and order and the peace and tranquility that the State is bound to preserve. 

The Arms Act, 1959 expressly prohibits the possession of arms by private parties without license. The only exception made is for security agencies. The possession of a license before a firearm is owned is a legal requirement. Such licenses are given or granted only if there is reasonable apprehension of aggression. 

The Bombay Police Act is similarly stringent on the question of possession of arms by citizens. The police are empowered to demand production of a license (section 19 of the Arms Act), arrest persons conveying arms etc under suspicious circumstances (section 20), confiscation of arms etc on possession of unlicensed arms (section 20).

In the section on fundamental rights, the Indian Constitution guarantees the freedom of expression, faith, belief and worship (Article 25) and equality before the law (Article 14). Taken together, these articles of the Indian Constitution guarantee the Indian State’s secular and democratic nature.

By their numerous statements and actions, the VHP, Bajrang Dal, RSS and the Shiv Sena are guilty of violating the Indian Constitution, the Arms Act and the Indian Penal Code. Are these criminal antecedents not ground enough to impel the Indian state into putting an immediate stop to these blatantly illegal and provocative camps, seizing the illegally held arms, and if necessary, arresting the chief agent provocateurs — the leaders of the Bajrang Dal, VHP and the Shiv Sena? 

By their statements and actions, the criminal antecedents of the VHP, Bajrang Dal, RSS and the Shiv Sena indict them for being violators of both the Indian Constitution, the Arms Act and the Indian Penal Code. Are these criminal antecedents and their defiance of the Arms Act not ground enough to impel the Indian state to put an immediate stop to these blatantly illegal and provocative camps, seize the arms that they have stored and if necessary, arrest the chief agent provocateurs, the leaders of the SS, BD and VHP? 

So far, only the CPI(M) and the Congress have demanded a curb on these activities. Last year, through an ordinance enacted on January 21, 2000, the Left Front government in Kerala had imposed strict restrictions on the kind of martial training imparted to shakha goers at RSS shakhas all over the country. The ordinance had made compulsory any organisation that wants to give martial arts training, the acquisition of a license. It also empowers police to inspect such training centres. (CC February 2000).  

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 2001 Year 8  No. 70, Campaign 1

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