Within days of an inconvenient Sreekumar being shifted out from the sensitive post of ADGP Intelligence, and the post handed over to a more malleable ADGP (Intelligence), Gujarat, a series of ‘encounters’ read extra judicial killings are were unleashed in Gujarat, between October 2002 and January 2007.

Read Part One of this Insight here

22 illegal killings in all, 16 that take Muslim lives, six Hindu. All these killings are followed by a post facto explanation from Gujarat’s intelligence bureau (often backed by the Centre) that the men and women shot in cold blood were all part of a plot to kill the chief minister or the then BJP president. Senior sources withing the Gujarat police confirmed that no prior information or intimation is recorded of intelligence about, ot the movements of such individuals who present such a high security threat. Neither is there any official documentation of any security nor protocol measures were taken by the Gujarat police to protect the lives of the powerful under threat by these men, or women, it is reliably learned.

Does Pandya’s murder fall within the parameter of a political killing masterminded by forces irked by his stances or was it an act of vendetta by Muslim militants for the 2002 carnage? Could the masterminds behind the former have used the ire instigated in the latter by the 2002 killings, to sustain and satisfy a different kind of revenge?

Means, motive and the mastermind
In any whodunit investigation into Pandya’s assassination, even without the colourful parameters provided by the master detective Hercule Poirot, political vendetta would surely be listed as one of the likely motives. Pandya had to pay a heavy political price… before he paid with his life. Forced to resign from the cabinet of ministers, post the carnage in 2002, he was also denied a ticket in the December 2002 elections from Ellis Bridge his well-groomed assembly constituency. Furious and rebellious as he was vocal in the media, some national level BJP leaders even ‘dared’ to speak out at the injustice meted out to him.
Days before five bullets had been pumped into him at point blank range minutes after he left for his daily morning walk to Law Gardens, the Bharatiya Janata Party had announced his political rehabilitation at the centre. Pandya was to be inducted into the party’s national executive on April 4, 2003. Back to centre-stage, his move to the capital would bring him into the close proximity of the most powerful men and women in the nation’s capital, within and outside his party where he would spit out, albeit in loud whispers, his bitter tale. Modi and his moves on, before and after Feburary 27, 2002 would be known first hand, from one who had seen the man operate at dangerously close quarters.

It was not to be. Eight days before the date, Pandya met his end and lay in cold blood, unattended for several hours while his faithful secretary and family waited in vain for his return from his morning walk. The raw and uncontrollable grief of Pandya’s family, his father Vithalbhai, sisters Chayabehn and wife Jagrutibehn was directed at Modi. His sister threatened to gouge his eyes out.The anger of his fans later that day at the hospital and at the condolence meeting a few days later was palpable, close to a political rebellion. Most of this anger was directed at Modi. Advani stepped in swiftly to dilute and diffuse both.
 
Did Advani, CBI and media divert attention or play things down?
So many aspects of the mysterious killing raise more questions than the CBI —brought in within two-three days of Pandya’s death to investigate the killing — has bothered to answer. Advani’s first dilatory move was to bring in the CBI in charge by March 29, 2003, and stem the public anger, forcing Modi to abide by the decision. The move was clever and it helped cooled tempers down. By September 2003 when the CBI concluded its investigation and filed its chargesheet, the agency’s conclusion confirmed the prognosis of the crime as pronounced by Advani the day he handed over charge to the CBI. A terrorist underworld nexus was behind the assassination Advani said, CBI charged and the trial court decreed. Between 2002 and a few years thereafter, the story was over, game set and match. Pandya’s life that ended dramatically had been reduced to the margin by his old friend but ruthless rival Narendra Modi. Even the drama of his death despite all the questions has shaken the composure of the man who could still be the ruthless mastermind behind the act.

Was Advani influencing CBI before it could even begin its work? As deputy prime minister and union home minister he is known to have thrown his weight behind supremacist groups allied to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) before.

Following the triple murder by burning of Graham Staines and his young sons, Advani was quick to absolve the VHP and Bajrang Dal of any involvement in the crime (The Times of India had reported his comment). Or did the CBI, the day it was given charge of the investigation already have information on who the killers were?

Was the subsequent conclusion reached by the CBI an independent and rigorous professional assessment? Or did the bureau, as it has done often in the past bow to the will of political masters affecting its credibility as the country’s premier investigating agency??

There are several questions that the CBI does not even begin to answer, many empirical and forensic lapses that will go down as a black mark in any objective history of the agency. One that is most significant lapse is CBI’s staunch refusal, despite the anger and conviction of Pandya’s closest family to even examine the plausibility or possibility of political vendetta being the mens rea, or motive behind the gruesome crime. The CBI, the country’s premier investigating agency concluded in its chargesheet that it was a terrorist underworld nexus that was responsible for Pandya’s death.

Though the local media reported lapses in the CBI investigation with declining consistently from the day of the murder in 2003 to the conviction of the “terrorist accused” in 2007, national editions of neither The Times of India nor the Indian Express tenaciously carried the tale outside Gujarat. The scandal remained confined to the western Indian state alone. Just like the coverage of the eight critical trials currently afoot (2009-2010) in Ahmedabad, Mehsana and Anand districts of the state, the national print and television media colluded to confining the coverage of serious lapses in investigations by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) then headed by another former CBI director Dr RK Raghavan, and the bias and prejudice of the local courts by confining coverage to their local editions.

Media’s own participatory role in fracturing its impact, region by region has not only confined critical news coverage to local editions. It has helped perpetrators of crimes, often the state or agents of the state by damage controlling or limiting national outrage and public perceptions building up against injustices. In the case of the media coverage of the Gujarat genocide justice process, media coverage has been fleeting and inconsistent. Television has no patience for diligent process, or the raw and rigorous courage of survivors, the grit and itch to the system caused by activists and rights groups. It prefers the screams of the genocide itself, the blood and the gore, the impotent tears before they are converted into an empowered struggle. The helplessness of disconnected sensation and images are preferable to a mourning and unified movement for resistance, justice and peace.

The CBI’s investigation had glaring loopholes. The carefully chosen trial court judge, Sonia Gokhani coming from a family committed to strong political views, did not even begin to exercise her powers under the criminal procedure code to force further investigation where several were necessary. The man who oversaw this historically poor investigation through was the then CBI director PC Sharma. PC Sharma took personal interest in the case, even visiting Ahmedabad on April 3, 2002 smilingly offering himself to news photographers and interviews. He appears to have been well rewarded for his efforts overseeing the Haren Pandya murder investigation by the ruling NDA’s home minister and deputy prime minister, LK Advani and promptly appointed to the National Human Rights Commission on March 3, 2004, soon after his retirement. The country’s largest civil liberties organisation, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) challenged his appointment in the Supreme Court of India, on grounds that a policeman serving on a statutory human rights body defeated the very purpose of the NHRC’s creation. The court dismissed the petition stating that nothing in the law constituting the NHRC (the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1991) precluded such an appointment. The court stuck to the technicalities of the law and refused to honour its premier commitment to the fundamental rights guaranteed in our Constitution and its mandate to intervene whenever these may be seen to be violated. Further, the failure of our apex court to see the nexus behind such critical appointments have allowed not just this appointment, but so many other similar and significant abuses of power by governments and those elected. When perpetrators of unprofessional acts are rewarded, not only is the soul and spirit of our Constitution violated. The message the system sends out to those who violate the law and Constitution is that these actions will not only go unchecked. You may even be rewarded. PC Sharma remains a member of the NHRC to this day.

Tragically two equally potent and possible theories could fit the motive for this gruesome murder. Pandya’s calculated action in speaking to a citizens tribunal, albeit one headed by former members of the Indian judiciary exposed state complicity in the genocide and surely could have been one of the motives behind the murder. The CBI dismissed this possibility as non-existent, refusing to even consider it as a potent motive. By  leaving this motive conspicuously un-investigated, by refusing to record the evidence of close family members, by refusing to call as witnesses the first among three to reach the spot –including Nilesh Bhatt, Pandya’s private secretary—where Pandya’s body lay in white Maruti car, the CBI investigation has laid itself open for contempt and scrutiny.

CBI investigation a blot on the institution’s legacy?
By latching onto the theory, first propounded by political masters but not at all improbable in its own right and further compounding its unprofessionalism by botching up key empirical investigations, the CBI’s investigation into the Haren Pandya murder remains a major slur on the agency’s reputation.
After February 27, 2002, the date of the Godhra incident, on May 22 2002, there occurred a series of tiffin bomb blasts in local buses all over the state of Gujarat. These incidents were booked as offences under five different police station areas. The state’s police did not opine publicly as to who had done it. Thereafter the attack on the Akshardham temple on September 25, 2002 took place after which there was a so-called attack on the VHP leader, Jaideep Patel. On March 26, 2003, Haren Pandya was killed and four days after CBI is handed charge, the accused were arrested on April 4, 2003. The claim is that they were arrested from Parimal Garden in Ahmedabad. The CBI states that weapons have been found on them and also that they had returned to Gujarat as part of a conspiracy to kill Hindu leaders (including Narendra Modi) after being trained in Pakistan. The crime branch and CBI traces the nexus to Hyderabad. The CBI seizes files form the local crime branch within 3 days. It takes over all records related to the murder.

This means that for nearly one year (after the tiffin blasts in May 2003) the investigating agencies had no notion or clue of this wider conspiracy by the accused and only after Pandya’s murder does this theory of an overall conspiracy crop up. The distraught Pandya family wails out in anguish alleging political motives but as far as we know no investigations on these lines are ever made.

This also means that from May 2002 until March 2003, neither the crime branch nor the state had followed any theory of a largescale Muslim conspiracy. Did they have no clue until then, as to who planted the tiffin bombs? No photographs of the alleged accused in the bus blasts had been constructed from descriptions of co-passengers or bus drivers of the different buses. No statements of bus drivers or co-passengers had been obtained.

There were three separate trials for these offences. The Haren Pandya’s murder trial was linked to the murder of Jagdish Tiwari, a VHP leader. This joint trial arises out of the killing of Haren Pandya and of the assault on JagdishTewari who survived. There are twelve accused in this assassination case, the mastermind Mufti Sufiyan allegedly a radical cleric from Lal Masjid area in Ahmedabad is absconding. The circumstances of his disappearance are suspicious and also remain un-probed.

The Haren Pandya killing is alleged to have taken place within or outside Law Garden but there is nothing in the investigations or charge-sheet, no description to show the condition in which the body was found.  Neither are there are no reports or investigations in this connection.  Ellis bridge police station officials reach the spot after the Navrangpura police station officials reach, though the Ellis Bridge is the relevant police station area and roster details reveal that there were enough policemen deployed around for a more prompt intervention. Incidentally the evidence of the policemen recorded by the trial court reveals no consistency on the spot of the crime, whether the murder was committed at Parimal Gardens or Law Gardens. There is much dithering over the location and who should have reached the spot first. The first time that the police reach there after the incident is around 10.40 a.m. though the incident is alleged to have taken place approximately between 7 and 8 am.

Procedural lapses in handling the body
Fifteen minutes after reaching the spot, around 10.55 am the police takes the slain body of Haren Pandya to the VS hospital about 2.5 kms away. Curiously, the hospital does not declare Pandya dead nor do they record his body temperature (This is a normal procedure followed that helps corroborate both whether a person is alive and if not, helps ascertain the time of death). But they do record that his vital symptoms not responding. When they send the body for the post mortem there is no reference to his wearing shoes.

The CBI appears to have overlooked the fact that we are dealing with the murder of a former state home minister. For inexplicable reasons, two police stations had been called to assist. Only one reaches and when the other is about to reach, (Ellis Bridge) the policemen are directed in the wrong direction, they are told to go to Parimal gardens, then re-directed to Law gardens.

All through the trial no one from the prosecution has explained—nor called upon by the court to explain– the mystery of Parimal gardens figuring in the initial instructions to the police when they were called upon to reach the spot of the crime.

Mysteriously, also, the police do not summon an ambulance though the VS hospital is not too far away. The police load Pandya’s body in their own jeep and take him to the hospital where the hospital authorities also record that they cannot feel a heartbeat, but still choose not to record his body temperature. At 12 noon, Haren Pandya is declared dead and we still have no explanation where his shoes are (though he was said to have been taking a morning walk when he was shot dead). In the post mortem report conducted on Haren Pandya’s body, the column meant to specify “estimated time of death” has not been filled.

Bullets that change colour and trajectory?
The post mortem shows five bullets in the body and the forensic experts at the hospital have described them as white metal bullets. Later the same experts describe the bullets seized as grayish (lead). The bullets displayed by the prosecution during the trial appear not to have been the bullets found from Pandya’s body. The judge overlooked another serious lapse.

The prosecution claim that Pandya was found dead slouched in his car is not supported by the angle of the bullet wounds nor by the absence of blood and gunshot residue inside the car. The investigation has failed to explain the absence of any intermediary targets that shots fired inside a car would necessarily pierce and produce.

On March 28, 2003 itself the CBI had taken over the investigations and also seized the cell phone belonging to Haren Pandya. The mobile forensic team meanwhile had gone to examine the site of the killing on the day of the murder. In their report, they do not describe condition or position of the car or its windows but a photo is taken. They make no mention of any gunshot residue in the car though they mention that some colouring that could be blood coating was  found on the neighbouring seat. There are twelve accused and after the initial spot visits the prosecution has made no further investigations at the scene of the crime.

Site of Murder
Medical evidence provided by both a prosecution witness and a defence witness rules out the possibility of the killing of Haren Pandya inside the car.  The spot where the body was found appears not to have been the scene of the crime. The photograph of the car that is documentary evidence supplied by the prosecution leads to this conclusion.

Experts during the trial opined that there were serious questions over the positioning of the body as well: the assailant and the weapon can never be in a spot to straightaway hit the scrotum inside a closed car. Ballistic evidence, by and large supported by a prosecution witness suggests that the circular injuries reflect a perpendicular entry into the body. The six bullet injuries each one circular are almost impossible through such a small opening of the window of the car. Despite this improbability Dr V Gupta, the IO in this case, from the CBI and a doctor have narrated these ‘facts’ in the charge sheet.

The defence during trial first and then before the Gujarat High Court, pointed out that expert prosecution witnesses have unabashedly said that they failed to investigate the position of the body inside the car at various points – from the time of  assault to removal of the body from the car. The ballistic expert, during evidence has not stated that the man was killed in the car.  Discrepancies are evident from their own reports. Six of the wounds are on the right side of the slain man and in an ‘up to down’ position (that is the bullet has been fired from a height and travelled downwards). One wound is left to right and ‘down to up’.
From the photographic evidence of the car collected by the authorities, a careful calculation as to whether it was possible with a 3.5 inch opening of the window to fire rounds of bullets that would injure the victim in the position and fashion that they did, reveal that this was near impossible. Injuries on Pandya’s body were on the other side. There was no way the prosecution had proved their case that Haren Pandya was killed at the spot where he was found in the car, were the strong arguments of the defence.

Dr. Narayan Reddy, serving head of department Osmania department of forensics, and a nationally recognized forensic expert stated in his testimony that such injuries that Pandya had sustained were not possible unless the victim was standing and assailant was crouching. Or, if the victim was lying flat on a surface with the revolver being pointed down towards him, a position that rules out Pandya being shot through a three and a half inch window gap while inside a car.

Discrepancies in Bullets Produced. Significantly, the post mortem report indicates seven bullet injuries even though only five bullets were recovered. The position of these wounds raised questions about the position of the victim when he was attacked. No explanation has been provided by the prosecution. Out of seven injuries one has followed a track from left to right below, upwards. On the face of it, such an injury is impossible to sustain inside a car, especially if the assailant is seated to the right. Despite instructions from the mobile forensic experts to the contrary, the prosecution withheld documents relating to the site of the offence and even the post-mortem report from their handpicked medical and ballistic experts.There can be only one explanation for this shady and shoddy behaviour by the CBI. The inference is inescapable that if investigated, and if these experts had been supplied documents like the post mortem report and the site documents, the CBI’s own expert witnesses would have arrived at conclusions that would have defeated the prosecution case.

The prosecution had a weak case
Finally, when the matter came to trial, the prosecution case rested only on a bunch of confessional statements made by the accused young men unsupported by any documentary or forensic evidence. All accused have been charged with the same conspiracy. In the course of the recovery from their homes in Ahmedabad, the Crime Branch found nothing. Interestingly according to the prosecution, Asghar is stated to have fled to Hyderabad after his arrest at Parimal gardens and is thereafter supposed to have been arrested on his return. It is after Asghar’s arrest and a search made by the CBI in their homes within Ahmedabad that the revolvers were supposed to have bene found. That is the case for the prosecution.

The defence argued that the prosecution in the Haren Pandya case was guilty of withholding of evidence in several ways: not leading evidence and withholding material evidence in their  possession despite directions of the court (shoes of the slain man, his cell phone records were not brought before the court); not producing vital witnesses (the secretary of Haren Pandya who reached the spot first and his wife who could have stated what time he left home were not called) and defacing or destroying evidence (indicators of several missed calls received on Pandya’s mobile were deleted while the mobile phone was in the custody of the investigating officer (IO) of the CBI, Dr Gupta).

Role of the CBI and the IO
After the CBI took over the investigation, their officers did not even record the statements of Pandya’s personal secretary Nilesh Bhatt and Kuntal Shanghvi who had reached the spot well before the police and the complainant.

They werealso not brought before the court. Their statements recorded by the Ellis Bridge police would and do throw light on the position of the body. However, they have been deliberately kept out of the court because their version would completely demolish the so-called eye-witness account.

There is one description in those statements which, read with the defence medical evidence (the defence brought in Dr Narayana Reddy Head of the Forensic department of Osmania University) as well as the evidence of the doctor who performed the post-mortem, might provide the clue as to the killing but the inference would be then that the deceased had stepped out of the car.  Since the same would defeat the eye-witness and possibly rule out the role of the present accused the prosecution suppressed the cross examination by the defence.

It was CBI’s IO Gupta (a doctor by profession) who categorically asserted that such a firing inside the car could have happened while Pandya was sitting inside the car but he had no explanation for the complete absence of blood marks or injury in the urinary tract.  Through the trial, the prosecution dithered, changing its theories and averments to the extent that the CBI even wanted to alter the position of the window in co-relation to what could be seen or observed from the photograph. The defence argued that the photograph should be sent to a national physical laboratory for corroboration. The Court refused this request.

Confession accepted in toto, due process abused?
What has been most shocking of all has been the dishonesty of the Judge, Sonia Gokhani. She accepted the confessions in toto never mind volumes of case law on the subject. When an officer of an investigating or prosecuting agency (in this case the CBI) lies in court and gets away with it, the dignity of a Court requires that the court orders an investigation.  In all these cases, she openly stated and genuinely believed that the defence was not to be believed and the prosecution is to be believed in toto. Due process was abused in the course of these trials. The judge did not question the prosecution’s failure to summon Pandya’s wife. This presumption of good faith in a prosecutorial agency shows predetermined bias on part of the judge.

Pandya’s father, Vithalbhai Pandya also produced an article from the Asian Age by Sonal Kellog who had stated that she had spoken to three morning walkers who had seen Pandya but had not disclosed their names. Though the defence asked the judge to summon the journalist and ask her the identity of these walkers, the judge refused to probe the matter further.

All evidence punctured holes in the prosecution of the timing of the murder (all evidence including medical pointed to Pandya’s having been killed between 8.30-9.30 am), the position of the body and the theory behind the bullet injuries. The prosecution did not produce Pandya’s shoes, his cell phone records nor his phone.

Worst of all, this judgement of conviction on a falsified prosecution case set out by the CBI, delivered in 2007, must be seen in the context of other cases related to the Gujarat 2002 carnage. This talk of Muslim terror and large conspiracy was put into place by the agencies only after Pandya died. To show these killings as communal rather than an individual act is a sinister attempt by the prosecution to colour the case. The prosecution tried also to bring in Communalism Combat’s historic Genocide issue in a puerile and vicious effort to indicate that it carried anti-national and vitriolic material that had instigated mass murderous crimes.

The curious case of Mufti Sufiyan
The most sinister twist to this tale is the manner in which Mufti Sufiyan was escorted out of Ahmedabad via Mumbai to Kolkatta and then Bangladesh allegedly by then crime branch chief, favoured hit-man of the Modi administration, policeman DG Vanzara(later accused of extra judicial killings). By a judgement delivered on January 12, 2010, the CBI thereafter investigated Vanzara’s role in three such gruesome murders that of Sohranuddin, his wife Kauserbi and associate Tulsiram Prajapati.

Mufti Sufiyan, the CBI charge-sheet tells us is an alleged Muslim radical who had incited youth to vengeful violence following the genocide of 2002. How come then, he and his family were allowed to so easily and safely trot out of the state?  Was the presence of the mastermind of the Haren Pandya assassination through trial prove inconvenient to the very masters whomay have used their services in the bloody plot? Would their continued presence and possible confessions later unravel the existence of a more sinister plot within a plot, wheels within wheels, when political vendetta uses the terror underworld nexus for its own slimy ends?  The Times of India carried a story in mid 2007 stating that Mufti Sufiyan was under watch and there was a move to attach his properties because he suddenly absconded. So many aspects of the crime have been left un-probed. Under the political circumstances in Gujarat was it possible for accused no 13 mastermind Muftui Sufiyan, his family and associate to escape Gujarat to Dacca or Karachi without state connivance or support?

Concealing Phone Records
There is no investigation on who had access to Haren Pandya’sphone on the day of his death till 3:15 PM, when the police finally seized it. The mobile telephone carried by Haren Pandya would have indicated when he had last accessed a call or SMS. This would have been invaluable in estimating the time and place of the assault on him. At 3:15 PM when the prosecution seized the phone the screen did not indicate any missed calls or messages as it should inevitably have shown. Prosecution witnesses have admitted these facts and the defence has inferred that since both Investigating Officers were aware of the significance of calls and were also informed by the complainant (Haren Pandya’s secretary) that he had made several calls which were not picked up by Pandya between 10:30 and 11 on that fateful morning, the absence of any indication of missed calls on the screen clearly indicates that they were obviously deleted. This should have led anyone to suspect someone’s access to the phone before or after Pandya’s death. This means that apart from concealing evidence, the CBI as investigating and prosecuting agency has also been responsible for tampering with it.  On this critical issue too, the evidence of IO of the CBI Dr Gupta his testimony shifts and changes.

He first says that he found no significant calls; then says that on April 6, 2003 when he checked the phone, he could notice nocalls or messages as the battery was discharged. (answers incross examination)  The trial court called for the records from Hutch. Mysteriously,they show an outgoing call on the same day that the IO states on oath that he checked the phone, ie April 6, 2003 itself as well as a message received, which indicates that the battery was functioning and so was the phone; CBI’s Gupta (who admits that the phone was in his custody) has in fact used the phone and thus there was no way he could not
have accessed messages and calls of the day of the murder that is March 26, 2003.

The defence argued that this witness had committed perjury before the Court and should be prosecuted for it. The court did not see fit to initiate any such proceedings. It later transpires that Gupta had obtained the mobile call records as early as on March 30, 2003, four days after the event but had concealed this fact from the trial court.

CBI’s IO, Dr Gupta would have had the complete information about missed calls as well as the SMSs and their towers. He could have had conclusive information about the time and place of the telephone on the fateful morning which could have thrown light on the movements of Pandya in that period. The telephone  records were never filed in the Court and have now disappeared from the CBI records for which there is no convincing explanation. Worse, the court has left these gross discrepancies uninvestigated.
 
Besides as Sreekumar’s personal register tells us, Pandya had another phone that the state intelligence bureau on instructions from the chief minister had kept under surveillance. However the CBI completely concealed these records from the court.
 
The CBI claimed that one eyewitness is the source of the information of the crime to the police but the evidence led in the case does not corroborate this aspect of the prosecution case. It is the prosecution’s case that the eyewitness Yadram told his boss who in turn communicated the fact of killing (including site and time) to the police either directly or through others. If in fact Yadram was the first and only source of information about the crime, then whenever this information reached the police, the identity of the victim, time and place of killing as well as the fact of there being an eye witness would inevitably have been known and recorded by the police. However, the control room records and the records of the Ellis Bridge police station are silent on all these counts. On the contrary, these records,  as well as the oral evidence reveal that the police reached the spot 3 ½ hours after the alleged time of occurrence on a vague notion that something had happened in either Parimal Gardens or Law Garden. It follows that there was no definite source of information about the crime and thus there was no eye witness.  All pointers render improbable if not impossible the presence of the so-called eye witness at the time of the occurrence. The facts as appear are more suggestive of this witness finding the body after 9-30 am or so. Even the doctors conducting the post mortem fix the occurrence of the crime between 8-30 and 9-30 a.m.
 
Appointed by the union home ministry (under LK Advani) and unopposed by Modi on March 29, 2003, the CBI was quick to file its charge-sheet dated September 8, 2003 in the Haren Pandya murder case.  Eight months later was to see a new regime in New Delhi but no efforts were made at all by those appearing for the CBI before or after May 2004, after a secular UPA government was in place in New Delhi, to get those lacunae apparent in the CBI’s charge-sheet clarified through attempts at re-investigation or further investigation before the trial court.

Not satisfied with masterminding the violence post Godhra 2002 and possibly perturbed with the resistance of some of our institutions to the carnage, Modi one of its main perpetrators had begun scheming weeks into the aftermath on ways and means to divert the attention of both the public and media and also agencies of law enforcement to other directions. The assassination of Haren Pandya and the series of extra judicial killings by Modi’s favoured officers were part of the calculated diversion and form an integral part of the wider workings of a high level cover up. Other states in the country too have witnesses these ‘fake encounters’ where increasingly the police-politician-underworld nexus have been targeting young Muslims.

But only Gujarat has justified these killings in court and politically. It is another bit of a brazen design, to erode the writ of the law, equality and justice and install in its place subversive and tainted governance. Unless reopened and ruthlessly reinvestigated and then retried the Haren Pandya murder case and the politician CBI cover-up will remain an indelible stain on our politics and polity.

(* This is an excerpt from a yet to be published book by CJP secretary TeestaSetalvad, who was a part of a Concerned Citizens Tribunal that conducted a series of hearings of witnesses and survivors in the aftermath of the Gujarat 2002 genocide. It is being published in wake of the Supreme Court upholding the conviction of 12 people in the murder of Haren Pandya, a former Gujarat minister who testified against his powerful bosses and exposed their complicity in fanning the communal flames that ravaged Gujarat.The article is in two parts, this is Part Two. It was written in 2010)
 
 
 

The post Haren Pandya Murder Case: The politics and conspiracy behind the botched investigations appeared first on SabrangIndia.

12 people, Asgar Ali, Mohammed Rauf, Mohammed Parvez Abdul Kayum Sheikh, Parvez Khan Pathan Khan alias Athar Parvez, Mohammed Farroq alias Haji Farooq, Shahnawaz Gandhi, Kalim Ahmed alias Kalimullah, Rehan Puthawala, Mohammed Riaz Sareswala, Aniz Machiswala, Mohammed Yunus Sareswala and Mohammed Saifuddin were first found guilty by a special trial court, which was also hearing a case against them for the alleged attempt on the life of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Jagdish Tiwari.
 
The CBI had claimed both cases were connected and part of a conspiracy to avenge the 2002 carnage. But the Gujarat High Court dropped the murder charge against the 12 in the Haren Pandya murder case. The prosecution then challenged this acquittal in the Supreme Court that has now restored the conviction and sentences of the accused.

The judgment by Justice Arun Mishra reads, “The evidence collected during the investigation in the cases revealed that both the incidents were part of the same transaction and in pursuance of a well-designed common conspiracy, they were committed. The motive was to spread terror amongst the Hindus.”
 
The SC also dismissed a PIL seeking a fresh probe filed by the NGO Common Cause, with costs to the tune of Rs 50,000/-.

 
Brief background of the case:
Pandya was found shot dead on March 26, 2003 and the gunmen still remain unidentified. But what is more curious is how the investigation progressed. CJP secretary Teesta Setalvad who was part of a Concerned Citizens Tribunal that conducted hearings of witnesses and survivors in the aftermath of the post-Godhra anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat says Pandya was punished for testifying against powerful perpetrators. In this piece that was written as a part of her yet to be published book she says, “Law Gardens, where Pandya was found dead inside a white Maruti car is a fashionably busy part of Ahmedabad but there were no inconvenient witnesses to the incident that day. The thelas selling banjara costumes and cholis that litter the border of the garden had been evicted from the area just a few days before Pandya’s murder.”

She points out the lapses in the manner in which the investigation began and the direction it took, saying, “Ellis Bridge is the closest police station to Law Gardens but mysteriously it was the Navrangpura police who first arrived at the spot. Officers of the Ellis bridge station had been mis-directed and initially told to go to the Piramal Gardens, not Law Gardens where the incident was supposed to have occurred. Halfway there, someone guided them back to the correct spot.”

The matter was first investigated by the Gujarat Police under the supervision of DG Vanzara, who was one of the key accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case (he was subsequently discharged from the case). Under pressure from civil society groups the case was subsequently handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Curiously the CBI never spoke to Pandya’s wife Jagruti who was the last person to speak to him. She was also not called in to testify before the special trial court.

When the Haren Pandya murder case was heard before a special trial court, the court also hearing another case where the same set of accused were facing charges for the attempt to murder Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Jagdish Tiwari. The 12 men, all belonging to the minority community were convicted by the trial court. Key accused Asgar Ali of Hyderabad was awarded a life sentence, others were to serve anywhere between five years to life.

Jagruti told rediff.com in June 2007 after the trial court’s judgment came out that she found it difficult to accept it and pointed out key prosecutorial lapses saying, “For two-and-a-half years, the mobile and phone records of my husband were not produced by the CBI. The CBI investigating officer admitted during his cross examination that the CBI had procured these records as early as March 30, 2003, but he admitted in open court that the CBI has no idea where the original printouts are. Where did the original phone records disappear?” There are allegations that despite being taken off the case Vanzara continued to influence the investigation. Curiously, Jagurti subsequently went on to join the BJP in 2016 and became chairperson of the Child Rights Commission.

But the Gujarat High Court dropped the murder charges against and observed that the investigation was botched and misdirected. However, the High Court did hold them guilty under sections 120 (criminal conspiracy) and 307 (attempted murder) as well as various sections of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in connection with the Jagdish Tiwari case.

The CBI and the state of Gujarat challenged the acquittal under murder charges and moved Supreme Court.

The post SC upholds conviction of 12 in Haren Pandya murder case appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: outlookindia.com

Within this wider narrative the slaying in cold blood of HarenPandya, a former minister of the state, on March 26, 2003, a year after the breakout of violence, adds a twist to the sinister tale.

HarenPandya’s journey: A quest for redemption?
The life and death of HarenPandya make for a rather curious tale. Born into a family committed to the RashtriyaSwayamsevakSangh (RSS), he represented as does his father VithalbhaiPandya a worldview that was and is committed to the political transition of Hinduism (a privately held belief) into Hindutva (a political, possibly exclusionary worldview).

A dynamic man who had won three successive elections from the Ellis Bridge constituency in Ahmedabad, Pandya was home minister in Keshubhai’s cabinet and also revenue minister of Gujarat when the carnage was unleashed in 2002. Paldi that falls within his constituency saw extensive damage to property belonging to the Muslim minority and there were some eye witness testimonials that claim to have seen Pandya in the mob.

With this background he contacted me. I was convenor of the Concerned Citizens Tribunal –Crimes Against Humanity Gujarat 2002 and Pandya deposed before us on Ahmedabad in May 2002, at the end of the Tribunal’s sittings all over the state. Justice PB Sawant a former judge of the Supreme Court of India, Justice Hosbet Suresh, retired from the Bombay High Court and KG Kannabiran, doyen of the human rights movement in the country apart from myself were present at the time.

For 17 days since May 1, 2002, the Tribunal had scoured the ravaged districts of the state and met thousands of affected families and recorded the testimonials of the gruesome violence. Police officials, commissioners and collectors of districts had testified before the tribunal. The picture that had emerged before us was chilling. A detailed outline of a conspiracy, already hinted at in sharp bursts of media coverage, revealed a picture of a plan hatched at the very highest level to actively render the police force and other agencies of law protection and enforcement neutralised and impotent. 

Yeh andar ki baat hai, Police hamaare saath hai

Brave and erudite reporting by the media especially the Times of India  and Indian Express as also Communalism Combat’s investigative Genocide 2002 issue (March April 2002) had documented secret meetings and illegal directives to help draw this vivid picture.

Yeh andar ki baat hai, Police hamaare saath hai, (it is an open secret that the police is with us) was the victorious slogan of karsevaks heading to Ayodhya from Gujarat before and after February 15, 2002. CC had for five years before 2002 detailed extensively distributed hate literature by non-state groups and actors supported by the state as also figures and documents that revealed a deep level of infiltration of rabid cadres of organisations involved in the violence into both the police, administration and other wings of governance.

For the tribunal to build on this foundation, and, in conclusion of its analysis of the violence unleashed in 2002, to definitively state that this complicity of the state executive flowed out of the direct action of holding an illegal meeting at which the chief minister specifically issued unlawful directions, a direct testimonial from someone in officialdom to confirm that such a meeting did actually take place on the night of February 27, 2002, was mandatory. As convenor it made my task more herculean to convince someone from officialdom to speak up. Dozens of efforts were made, only some proved successful. Finally the confirmation came from none less than a sitting minister in the Modi cabinet. This testimonial elevated the CCT’s three volume report from a substantive and courageous Inquiry Document into a truly historic document.

What HarenPandya told the CCT
Haren Pandya, when he responded to my efforts and met us, provided that valuable testimonial. We met him in Ahmedabad, a rendezvous cloaked in secrecy, and recorded what he had to say. I put questions to him as framed by the panel. Why had he not prevented the violence in the Paldi area of Ellis Bridge his own electoral constituency, we asked reminding him that he had been seen by some to be in the mob. The mob was enraged he replied, I diverted them away from taking lives to merely destroying property. The frenzy of the crowd had to be felt to be understood, this was not the normal vengeful reaction to a communally surcharged situation. The police were wilfully inactive, he asserted, because there were instructions from the very top. He could testify to a meeting that had taken place where, he confirmed some ministers of the Gujarat cabinet, the director general of police K Chakravarty, commissioner of Ahmedabad, PC Pande and few other critical officers from the secretariat and CMO were also present.

At this meeting the chief minister had allegedly issued clear-cut instructions to the police. There would be palpable Hindu anger visible on the streets the day after the Godhra incident on February 27, 2002. The police should allow this anger to vent itself. In short, do nothing to control it. Pandya provided the official confirmation to the tribunal that the blatantly subversive and unconstitutional acts by the state of Gujarat were born not simply of non-functioning or paralysis when spontaneous communal violence rages on the streets but were calculated and perpetrated actions, at various levels, to allow mass rape and killings.

My later investigations especially after the Supreme Court ordered an inquiry into the complaint filed by Zakia Ahsan Jafri dated June 8, 2006 revealed the names of those bureaucrats and policemen who attended that fateful meeting.

Why did Pandya do it?
His response to the tribunal was that he found the violence sickening and cynically induced and could never be party to such wilful acts of rape, murder and revenge. He also gave us an instance of how he had himself, using his privileged security helped escort the DawoordiBodhra religious chief living in Saraspur, the Chhotamullahas he is known, to the airport to escape safely to Mumbai.

In the violence ravaged areas, testimony after testimony of affected victims and even criminally errant policemen corroborated the three days long (72 hours) wilful inaction by the police who had been instructed not to act. We have a three day holiday, it is your turn to die, is what PI of Naroda police station KK Mysorewala told women who were stripped and chased naked by a virulent mob before many of them were killed at Naroda within Ahmedabad. Over 120 people met an unspeakably humiliating and violent end that day in this outskirts of a city, not five-eight kilometres away from Gulberg society at Chamanpura, another site of the worst violence.

We also recorded evidence of similar secret meetings held at Godhra and Lunawada to chalk out the attacks on the minorities in villages in the Panchmahal and Dahod districts. After Ahmedabad, Panchmahals that saw the gruesome killings in Kidiad and Pandharwada, apart from the gang rape of BilkeesBano and killings of her family, was the worst affected district in terms of loss of life.

Pandya’s ordeal post testimony before CCT
News of Pandya’s wilful betrayal inevitably reached the ears and eyes of the state government and soon thereafter reached the media around June 2002, a month after his meeting with the tribunal. Political ostracism and venomous exclusion was the price that Pandya had to pay. Modi brooked neither dissent nor healthy competition. Pandya had in his life represented both. Outlook’s story, A Plot from the Devil’s Lair bears this out.

It was no surprise then that Pandya was soon charged with anti-party activities and by July 2002, he was out of the ministry. Modi, riding on a post genocidal electoral high, defied pressures from Advani and Jaitley and did not even re-nominate Pandya for the December 2002 state polls. When Modi rode back to power, Pandya was completely marginalised, reduced to his morning walks and even playing golf. It was just before a morning walk three months later he was shot dead. His body lay where he was killed for nearly hours without anybody reporting it.

Law Gardens, where Pandya was found dead inside a white Maruti car is a fashionably busy part of Ahmedabad but there were no inconvenient witnesses to the incident that day. The thelas selling banjaracostumes andcholis that litter the border of the garden had been evicted from the area just a few days before Pandya’s murder.

Ellis Bridge is the closest police station to Law Gardens but mysteriously it was the Navrangpura police who first arrived at the spot. Officers of the Ellis bridge station had been mis-directed and initially told to go to the Piramal Gardens, not Law Gardens where the incident was supposed to have occurred. Halfway there, someone guided them back to the correct spot.

Was Pandya placed under surveillance?
A remarkable document critical to understanding the Gujarat genocide of 2002, that has not received the attention it deserves is the ‘Personal Register’ maintained by then additional director general of police RB Sreekumar between April 16 and September 19, 2002. This document that runs into 207 pages has received exclusive treatment in my narrative later. But it also has a specific relevance here. All entries in Sreekumar’s register are crucial role in understanding the Machiavellian and evil levels to which both Modi and his mentor, LK Advani, then minister for home affairs and deputy prime minister to boot, went to obfuscate evidence post the genocide and facilitate cover-ups in the registration of offences and their investigations. Some entries specifically point to efforts at the highest levels to stalk Pandya misusing state government machinery after his testimony to the tribunal.

An entry made by Sreekumar in this personal register on June 7, 2002, reveals that the chief minister’s principal secretary, PK Mishra was desperate on behalf of Modi, his boss to ascertain whether or not it was Pandya who had met the Concerned Citizens Tribunal. Mishra asked Sreekumar on that day to find out which minister from the Modi cabinet had met a citizens’ enquiry tribunal (looking into the Godhra and post-Godhra violence) of which retired Supreme Court judge, VR Krishna Iyer, was a panel member. Mishra told Sreekumar that minister of state for revenue, HarenPandya, was suspected to be the man concerned. He also gave Sreekumar the number of a mobile phone (No. 98240 30629) and asked him to trace details of this meeting through Pandya’s telephone records. When Sreekumar did not jump to obey, Mishra repeated the instructions on June 12, 2002, saying that HarenPandya was believed to be the minister concerned who met the tribunal. In his register Sreekumar states that though he had stressed to the chief minister’s principal secretary that the matter was a sensitive one and outside the SIB’s charter of duties, he provided the call details of the above mentioned mobile phone, and handed these over to Mishra through his IGP OP Mathur soon thereafter.

A month before this, while Sreekumar was busy recording all the illegal instructions he was receiving from chief minister Modi another entry made by him on May 7, 2002 is significant. Thirteen days before this date, ADGP Sreekumar had made a detailed assessment on the communal situation in Ahmedabad (April 24, 2002) wherein he had confirmed independent assessments made by rights’ groups and the CCT (especially related to the subversion of investigations by non-registration of FIRs, clubbing of complaints, dropping names of powerful accused etc). This report by the state’s IB chief clearly did not suit Modi since, by sticking to constitutional norms of governance and law enforcement, it veered away from the state’s chosen policy of partisan rule. Little wonder then that this report had bitterly irked the Modi government.

On that afternoon, the chief minister, NarendraModi himself summoned Sreekumar for a meeting unwilling to trust this task to even his trusted coterie. He first asked the ADGP for his assessment of the continuing violence in Ahmedabad. Sreekumar promptly referred to the irksome note on the prevailing communal situation where upon Modi said that he had read the note but believed Sreekumar had drawn the wrong conclusions. The chief minister argued that the violence in Gujarat did not necessitate such am elaborate, professional analysis – it was a natural uncontrollable reaction to the incident in Godhra. That was that. He then asked Sreekumar to concentrate on Muslim militants instead.

Sreekumar pointed out that it was not Muslims who were on the offensive in Gujarat and moreover, he urged the chief minister to reach out and build confidence within the battered and beleaguered minority community. Modi was visibly annoyed at Sreekumar’s suggestions, the register records.

There is another critical entry in the register that I link to the narrative concerning Pandya’s murder. On June 28, 2002, then Gujarat chief secretary SubhaRao had convened a meeting of top officials in the context of the annual rathyatra to begin that year from Jamalpur Ahmedabad on July 7, 2002. Key favoured officers from the coterie of the chief minister were also present. The ADGP Intelligence had suggested a cancellation of yatra given the fragile situation and the newly appointed commissioner of Ahmedabad, KR Kaushik had endorsed the ADGP (Intelligence)’s views. Sreekumar had opined that retributive anger of Muslim youth could fuel tensions. He also shared intelligence inputs received from central agencies about plans of Pan – Islamic militants and Muslim terrorists out to cause harm to both the rathyatra and Hindus. While others present were debating a cancellation of the yatra or negotiating a change of its route, the chief secretary SubhaRao, informed the group that there was no question of cancelling the procession as the chief minister had already taken a firm decision to permit it through its traditional route.

After the formal meeting SubhaRao spoke to Sreekumar personally and suggested that if anyone was observed trying to disturb or disrupt the rathyatrathere was a simple solution that had political sanction and was the well-considered decision of chief minister NarendraModi, that person should be eliminated.Sreekumar had then refused to play ball, stating that such an action would be totally illegal and unethical. Though the chief secretary tried to pressure him into accepting the chief minister’s edict, Sreekumar remained adamant.

Sreekumar’s register abruptly stops on September 19, 2002 after he commits the final folly of honestly reporting on Modi’s inflammatory election rally speech at the temple town of Becharaji in north Gujarat’s Mehsana district (more on that later). But in the months since May 2002, two things are clear. Pandya has won the wrath of Modi by deposing before the Tribunal. Modi and his men in the administration, especially the chief secretary SubhaRao and ACS (home) Ashok Narayan are openly propagating the practice of ‘elemination’ of those who are irked by the policies of the Gujarat government and who may indulge in any activities against rabid Hindu groups or processions.  
 

* This is an excerpt from a yet to be published book by CJP secretary TeestaSetalvad, who was a part of a Concerned Citizens Tribunal that conducted a series of hearings of witnesses and survivors in the aftermath of the Gujarat 2002 genocide. It is being published in wake of the Supreme Court upholding the conviction of 12 people in the murder of HarenPandya, a former Gujarat minister who testified against his powerful bosses and exposed their complicity in fanning the communal flames that ravaged Gujarat.The article is in two parts, this is Part One.

Related Articles:
1. Concerned Citizens Tribunal – An Inquiry into the Carnage in Gujarat
3. A Plot from the Devil’s Lair

The post A Murder Most Foul: How Haren Pandya was silenced appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image courtesy: Indianexpress.com
 
The Supreme Court will hear a fresh petition on February 12 seeking a new investigation into the murder of former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya in March 2003, it posted on Friday.
 
Haren Pandya was shot dead on March 26, 2003, in his car outside Ahmedabad’s Law Garden. His wife, Jagruti Pandya, had raised questions over the initial probe in the murder, which was handled by Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch under Deputy Commissioner of Police DG Vanzara. Vanzara has since retired.
 
“A petition filed in the Supreme Court sought a fresh, court-monitored probe into the murder. The plea by NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) says the need for a fresh probe had arisen in view of “some startling information that has recently come to light and has been extensively reported by the media regarding Mr Haren Pandya’s murder, information which was never investigated into by the investigating agency, the CBI,” The Indian Express reported.
 
“The petitioners said that Azam Khan—a witness in the encounter case of gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kauser Bi, and associate Tulsiram Prajapati—had told a Mumbai court during the trial that “Sheikh had told him that Mr Haren Pandya was murdered as a part of a contract killing…” involving a senior IPS officer. In November last year, Khan, an associate of Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati, said that while he had told the CBI investigator about it in 2010, the officer had refused to record it as part of his statement,” the report said.
 
The CBI had named 15 accused in Pandya’s murder. A trial court convicted 12 of them on June 25, 2007. Lack of evidence in the case made Gujarat High Court acquit all of them.

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Ghosts from the past have an uncanny way of turning up in the present with immense potential to blight the future of the most powerful. On November 3, a key witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh alleged fake encounter case told a Mumbai court that the murder of senior BJP leader and a former Gujarat minister Haren Pandya in 2003 was a contract killing executed at the behest of former IPS officer DG Vanzara.

The deposition of Azam Khan, an Udaipur based small time gangster before the CBI court has brought to life the most speculated and worst-kept secret of the time– that the murder of the up and coming Gujarat BJP leader was a political extermination at the behest of some of the most powerful in the land of the Mahatma.

Vanzara terms it as yet another conspiracy to defame him. “Azam Khan is a criminal. There are cases against him in Gujarat, Rajasthan and some other states. Even today he is in jail. Moreover his evidence is hearsay. It does not account for much under the Indian Evidence Act and is not admissible under law. Moreover when CBI recorded his statement, he did not say any such thing”.

Khan, though, had said during further cross-examination, that he had told the CBI officer, NS Raju about the contract killing but it was not taken on record on the pretext of not creating new complications.

The revelation about Pandya’s killings surfaced in the course of the proceedings in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh alleged fake killing case in 2005, in which Vanzara was an accused with the then minister of state for home Amit Shah, and IPS officers Raj Kumar Pandiyan and Dinesh MN.

They have all been discharged from the case along with other police officers such as NK Amin and Vipul Aggarwal, to name a few. According to one count, 90 of the total witnesses examined in the case so far have turned hostile. In short, the big guns are free, while lower rank officers and constabulary are facing the music.

Though fake encounters by cops have taken place earlier, these acquired a pattern during Narendra Modi’s stint as Gujarat chief minister. These encounters included those of Sadiq Jamal (2003), Ishrat Jahan and two others (2004),Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi (2005) and Tulsiram Prajapati (2006).

Almost all of them were labelled as handles of Pakistani terror agencies out to get the CM. Most of the time, the senior cop unravelling these conspiracies was led by Vanzara. Interestingly 32 police officers including six IPS officers were incarcerated in connection with a series of police encounters in Gujarat.

According to a published report, during an interrogation by a CBI team of Vanzara led by DIG Sandeep Tamagde in Sabarmati jail in September 2013, he had hinted at a political conspiracy behind Pandya’s killing. He also reportedly spoke of Sohrabuddin’s role in Pandya’s murder in March 2003. His interrogation took place after he had written an explosive letter resigning from the IPS in which he reportedly blamed Shah for the encounters.
 

Sohrabuddin Sheikh, DG Vanzara

What transpired within the CBI after Vanzara’s interrogation is not known but the fact remains that Azam Khan’s revelation echoed what the accused IPS officer had hinted in 2013 -that Pandya’ killing was political.

Haren’s father, Vithal Pandya, also termed his son’s death as a political conspiracy orchestrated by Vanzara at the behest of the then chief minister. The octogenarian, who passed away in January 2011, went down fighting. He did not agree with CBI’s line of investigation and was livid with then Union Home Minister LK Advani for blaming ISI and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, days before CBI took over the probe. 
 

“It was Advani who set the line of investigations for CBI and derailed the probe”, Vithal said. He added that his constituency, Ellisbridge in Ahmedabad, had remained peaceful even during the 2002 riots that followed the Godhra train carnage.

Haren Pandya ,was a rising star in the BJP in Gujarat and was immensely popular within the party. He held the home portfolio in the Keshubhai Patel government and revenue in the first Modi government..The first point of friction between the two was Modi’s choice of Pandya’a Ellisbridge seat to enter the Vidhan Sabha and Pandya’s refusal to oblige. Modi was subsequently elected to the Assembly from Rajkot, on a seat vacated by Vajubhai Vala, the present Governor of Karnataka.

In the immediate aftermath of the Godhra train carnage, Pandya is reported to have opposed bringing the burnt body remnants of the passengers by road from Godhra to Ahmedabad ,at a cabinet meeting. He said it would further ignite communal passions, but he was shouted down. What followed is history.

Though kept confidential, it is known that Pandya had testified before the Concerned Citizens Tribunal on the 2002 Gujarat riots. It comprised of three retired judicial luminaries. That Pandya was a marked man thereafter was known. He had also expressed fears of his likely liquidation to chosen contacts in the media as well.

Vithal Pandya never tired of pointing to the political conspiracy that led to his son’s killing. He did not even agree with the POTA court judgment on June 25, 2007 that sentenced nine people to life imprisonment for the murder of Haren. If he had been alive, the old man would have felt vindicated on August 29, 2011 when the Gujarat High Court reversed the lower court’s order terming it “perverse” and “illegal” and which did not consider scientific evidence presented in the injuries , forensic and ballistic reports.

It criticized the CBI for a “botched” and ” blinkered” investigation and said that the investigating officers” ought to be held accountable for their ineptitude, resulting in injustice, harassment of many people concerned, enormous waste of public resources and public time of court”.

It is against this backdrop that one needs to view Azam Khan’s testimony purely in relation to Haren Pandya’s case even though it links the fake encounters with it, particularly the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati cases.

According to Azam’s testimony, “During a discussion with Sohrabuddin, he told me he along with Naeem Khan and Shahid Rampuri got the contract to kill Haren Pandya and they killed him. I felt sad and I told Sohrabuddin that they have killed a good person. Sohrabuddin told me that the contract to him was given by Vanzara.” Khan also testified in court that Sohrabuddin had told him that this work had come from above.

Haren Pandya’s body was found in his Maruti-800 riddled with seven bullets,with the windows rolled up except for the driver’s side.There was no blood in the car except a tiny solitary drop on the adjoining seat. One does’nt need an expert to tell you that he had possibly been abducted, killed elsewhere and the body put back in his car which was kept at the venue of his morning walk .

The investigating agencies, the Gujarat police initially and the CBI soon after, apparently seemed more intent in covering up than in exposing the real killers. The last has not been heard in the matter though the fate of Haren Pandya and many other encounters have inextricably got linked to a political see-saw.
—
*Senior Gujarat-based journalist. Blog: Wordsmiths & Newsplumbers

Courtesy: https://www.counterview.net

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“Now, after nearly two years of the SIT saying that these records, as per the government of Gujarat’s version, are destroyed, you mentioned when I (Teesta Setalvad) brought this to your attention to be recorded in my 161 statement, that then commissioner of police PC Pande has, after the hon’ble court directed the SIT to go into the report filed by the amicus curiae, thereafter produced the entire documentary record that he had scanned and kept aside before they were ‘destroyed’! You also mentioned that there was 3,500 pages of such evidence which the SIT is now, after nearly two years of the inquiry, examining.

We wish to express, as co-petitioners and co-complainants, our distress and consternation at what we believe is a belated attempt by Shri Pande to save his skin or those of his political bosses, as all this while – including in the report submitted by yourself and Shri Raghavan to the hon’ble Supreme Court – you have maintained that these records have been destroyed. Shri Pande has, we have been given to understand, twice before been examined by the SIT in the Zakiya matter, between May 2009 and May 2010. Surely in the 12-month period he ought to have produced this record that he had so carefully scanned and preserved?

It may be assumed that if the inquiry had not reached this stage i.e. if the hon’ble Supreme Court had not impelled or compelled the SIT to go further, Shri Pande’s sudden and generous manoeuvre would have never happened, that is, the “destroyed” records would have remained buried!

Sir, We were particularly disturbed by your interpretation of the actions of Shri Pande, which seemed to be interpreted as his astute generosity (Shri Pande’s) in actually scanning and producing these records at this belated stage. The following questions arise that we wish to place specifically before you:

1. The timing of the “destroyed” records “reappearing” in the action of Shri PC Pande suddenly handing over the scanned CD of all destroyed documents to you post-March 15, 2011 i.e. the last directions of the hon’ble Supreme Court.
2. Since Shri Pande’s role of collusion in the conspiracy has been specifically alleged, we at least cannot see this either as a stray or innocent act and would therefore urge that a hard, objective inquiry into the previous evasion and suppression of evidence, and thereafter the sudden disclosure, takes place and offences against Shri PC Pande are also registered for the earlier suppression and subsequent disclosure.
3. When a senior officer like Shri Pande states that records are destroyed, in the preliminary inquiry, and thereafter turns up with the vanished documents, what are we to make of this? Similarly, we believe that videos will turn up.
4. Shri Pande’s role in the overall conspiracy and his subsequently being rewarded for his silence and suppression make him liable to be inquired into. His personal assets and accounts and those of his family members as also the assets and accounts of other IPS and IAS officials who have been favoured by the government of Gujarat need to be part of the inquiry.
5. We thought it imperative that this matter be placed on record…

I would like to end by stating that the fresh revelations by Shri Pande amount to an effort by a highly placed officer of not merely attempting a cover-up of his suppression of crucial records for nine-plus years but subverting the inquiries into various cases by not making available these records in the individual trials and thereby committing grave contempt of the judicial process. We would like to state that though partial records in the Gulberg cases (police control room and fire brigade, etc) were made available, this happened only after applications under 173(8) were filed by witnesses and did not logically form part of the charge sheet as they should have done from the very beginning. Why were Shri Pande and other senior officials suppressing these records? Allegations of high-level involvement and complicity have been made by victim survivors since immediately after the incidents. Was this suppression related to protection of the mighty and powerful?”

The SIT in 2010

“The Gujarat government has reportedly destroyed the police wireless communication of the period pertaining to the riots… No records, documentations or minutes of the crucial law and order meetings held by the government during the riots had been kept” (p. 13 of the Preliminary Inquiry Report).

The SIT makes this observation but recommends no action for this criminal act.
 

 
Archived from Communalism Combat, April-May 2012. Year 18, No.165 – Introduction, Gujarat 2002

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“Open the Doors!” is an epigram used by  Christians in this 2000th 
anniversary of the birth of  Jesus Christ (Yesu Krist Jayanti 2000 or YKJ 2000) accompanied by the symbolic gesture of opening the doors of cathedrals and churches to society and the world. 

This symbolises the Christian resolve to be fully open in the new millennium — to sincerely dialogue with all religions, with the sciences and with all peoples in a global endeavour to foster justice, fellowship and peace. However, for Christians in Gujarat, especially those in the southern tribal districts, Christmas and the New Year 2000 have been closed-door affairs as saffron squads held the Christian community hostage while arm–twisting the state BJP–government into acceding to their demands.

A close analysis of the events preceding Christmas week, with the insidious moves and double–speak of the BJP state government, gives cause for alarm.
As a prelude to the Christmas 1998 Christian–bashing and chapel-burning, incendiary pamphlets were distributed in the villages of the Dangs (See Combat, January 1999). This Christmas (1999), too, Janubhai A. Pawar, president of the Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM), master-minded the distribution of provocative pamphlets and called for a Hindu ‘dharma sabha’ precisely on Christmas Day. 

Feigning determination to protect the minority community and to curb violence, the home minister, Haren Pandya, issued a circular banning rallies of any community on the feast days of another community.

Janubhai Pawar was subsequently arrested on December 9 after the Christian community expressed its apprehensions. Surprisingly, with Janubhai’s arrest, about 200 BJP members including all party officers of south Gujarat resigned in protest against the circular and the arrest. Within hours, Pawar was released on bail. 

Janubhai Pawar is the main trouble–maker in the Dangs. The Citizens’ Committee Report on the Dangs published in New Delhi in March 1999 recommended that the HJM be banned from the Dangs since: “The HJM’s sole objective is to instigate people to create trouble on communal lines. It is this organisation that has been responsible for all the incidents in the Dangs. The leader of HJM, Janubhai Pawar, has found his organisation a convenient instrument to exploit, blackmail and terrorise people.

“Obviously he has the backing of the government as is evident from the way he took us to a government office to give his views — when the officials at his very sight stood up to receive him and thereafter waited outside literally in attendance. There are four cases registered against him and having regard to the activities he has been indulging in, he should have been externed from Dangs for the mere asking.” 

Interestingly, in the aftermath of the 1998 mayhem, to diffuse the focus of blame, Janubhai Pawar stoutly denied that the HJM was part of the Sangh Parivar (see Citizen’s Commission Report, p.21). This time, however, the ‘shilanyas’ and the rally were jointly organised by the HJM and the VHP who declared that the government would not ban their programmes as it was they themselves who launched it to power. Pushed against the wall, in a volte–face of its previous stand, the government lifted its ban on rallies with the VHP–HJM’s ‘verbal assurance’ to the home minister that they would call off the Christmas Day rally in exchange for allowing the ‘shilanyas’ at Halmodi on December 22.

The withdrawal of the ban on rallies went against the Union home ministry’s letter sent to the state chief secretary, L.N.S. Mukundan, to impose a restriction on all rallies around Christmas week in the state, particularly in the Dangs, “to pre-empt unfortunate implications on any count.” The home ministry’s letter, signed by special secretary, M. B. Kaushal, also instructed the state government to take legal action against those implicated in last year’s attacks. Ignoring these instructions, the government yielded to the fanatic elements among its ranks, laying bare its malicious intent. Was it necessary to withdraw the circular banning rallies if the Sangh Parivar was serious about not going ahead with theirs? 

When questioned whether the VHP–HJM combine would actually cancel the proposed Christmas rally, VHP joint–secretary, Jaideep Patel, said, “We will disclose our position with regard to the rally only after the successful completion of the shilanyas programme.” This reply betrays the Sangh Parivar’s intentions.

While bargaining with the saffron forces, the home minister rushed to the Dangs in a vain attempt to assuage the fears of the Christian community. There were neither explanations about the government’s plans to curtail anti-Christian atrocities nor any indications of bringing the culprits to book. Pandya merely told the Christian delegation to be patient, promised them security and requested them not to make press statements for it would aggravate the situation. The government also sought to coerce the Christian community into agreeing to the ‘shilanyas’.

Christian leaders refused to sign any statement of agreement for they claimed that it was part of the VHP-HJM’s terror campaign. Furthermore, familiar with the back–bending of the government on various issues, the Christian community doubted the sincerity of the home minister. Many Christian leaders were sure that the government would finally allow the VHP–HJM to have its way. 

Apparently, the BJP government in Gujarat is unconcerned about the plight of the minorities. It only desires that the truth be concealed. 

Contrary to the claims of the VHP-HJM that over 10,000 tribals (‘vanvasis’ in Sangh Parivar terminology) would assemble at Halmodi for the ‘shilanyas’ ceremony on December 22, barely 500 people including government officials and school children were present. Swami Aseemananda of the Waghai–based ‘Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad’ — who devised the forcible ‘shuddikaran’ (ritual purificatory process) at the Unai hot–springs and launched a scathing attack on Christian missionaries before the ‘bhoomi pujan’ at Halmodi — explained that the aim of setting up temples all over the district was to enable ‘vanvasis’ to worship in peace. 

Although the Parivar members were upset by the low turnout at the ceremony, it served as intimidation to the minority community and symbolically demonstrated the power of the Hindutva forces. Admitting that the turnout was low, Rajnikant Rajwadi, BJP MLA from Bardoli, made a significant comment: “The message has been conveyed to the world that we have achieved our objective.” 

Haren Pandya was pleased that the ‘shilanyas’ passed off “peacefully” and S.K. Nanda, secretary in–charge of Dangs, mentioned that the Halmodi ceremony left tribal Christians “quite relaxed.” The fact is that tribal Christians were terrorised and remained indoors.

After the shilanyas, egged on by the weak resolve of the state government, the VHP–HJM publicised plans for the proposed ‘dharma sabha’ on December 25 to be addressed by Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Karvir Pith while the home minister, interviewed by Star TV repeated, “We will leave no stone unturned to maintain law and order.” Parrying questions, he could not explain the government’s compromises and failure to counter the VHP–HJM offensive. 
Meanwhile, the district authorities seemed clueless about the plans of the VHP–HJM and helpless about the government’s arbitrary decisions. 

Simultaneously, as the result of a criminal miscellaneous application filed by Samson C. Christian, secretary, United Christian Association, the Gujarat High Court directed the state government to appoint two observers in the Dangs from December 26 to 28 who would produce a report by December 29.

With tension mounting, on Christmas eve, nearly 750 villages, chapels and institutions of South Gujarat which were identified as sensitive spots, were cordoned off by a huge police force with 55 senior police officers, 15 companies of the SRP and 300 RAF jawans, making it impossible to celebrate Christmas.
Ironically, the YKJ jubilee, to be celebrated with ‘open doors’ passed off behind locked doors and under the shadow of the gun.

No traditional midnight prayer-services and no cultural programmes were possible. A veritable Christmas curfew. “The Hindutva forces have succeeded in instilling fear among us, tribals, who have lived peacefully for decades,” said Motilal Gaikwad, former co–ordinator of the ‘Adivasi Pragati Samiti’. 

He regretted that the Christian community had to call off its Christmas prayers and programmes. “The government wants us to be grateful for preventing violence. That we have lost all our freedom and basic rights is of no consequence to them,” lamented a Christian leader who was strictly warned not to meet the press.

On Christmas day itself, saffron flags adorned the roads at Ahwa. At the Dandkeshwar Mahadev Temple, the Shankaracharya convened a ‘sabha’ of about 500 people and attacked the Christian missionaries. Swami Aseemananda and other VHP–HJM leaders gave vituperative speeches with threats of a backlash if the missionaries continued their activities. The meeting concluded with a decision to hold similar ‘dharma sabhas’ every Christmas.

Two observers of the All India Christian Council, John Dayal, national convenor of the United Christians Forum for Human Rights and national secretary of the All India Catholic Union and Kamal Mitra Chenoy, professor at JNU (Delhi) and leading civil rights’activist, lambasted the government for its ineptitude and connivance. Asserting that the Parivar had violated prohibitory orders and taking exception to the fiery speeches, Chenoy and Dayal added that, “a systematic attempt was being made by the Sangh Parivar to enforce its will and political and social agenda, violating all norms of civil society.” 

The Dangs disappeared from media focus as soon as the Kandahar hijacking hit the headlines. Thus, voices against the Gujarat government’s handling of the situation were few and weak.

Gujarat’s leader of the Opposition, Amarsingh Chaudhary, pointed out that “Christians are being terrorised by militant Hindu organisations” and alleged that “organisations like the VHP, RSS, HJM and Bajrang Dal, supported by the ruling BJP in Gujarat, have been carrying on disruptive activities in a bid to create a rift between tribals and tribal Christians in the state.” 

The saffron brigade has reaped rich dividends through its terror tactics and brow–beating of minorities. The pernicious and persistent peddling of Parivar ideology is backed by a political power–base that surreptitiously supports and sustains it and vice versa. Hence, the phenomenal success of the BJP in Gujarat: three new, tribal–belt victories in last year’s Parliamentary elections (Chhota-udepur, Dahod and Mandvi) and 30 out of 48 municipalities this year.
The Parivar armament also contains an ostensibly innocuous, yet insidious, bill on religious conversion that was introduced in the Gujarat Assembly by BJP MLA Mangubhai Patel, arousing apprehension among minorities in Gujarat. When challenged about its anti–constitutional content, Haren Pandya was quick to remark, “This is not raised by the whole party but by one member.” When questioned whether he would revoke the bill, Pandya was non–committal saying, “We shall see when the bill comes up for discussion!” There is little doubt that the powerful BJP lobby will try its might and mane to pass the bill, thereby trampling upon the minorities’ constitutional, fundamental rights.

New Year 2000 has brought little cheer for Gujarat’s minorities. On January 3, the Keshubhai government lifted the ban on membership of state government employees in the RSS, one of the 30–odd communal organisations on the banned list, which includes the Indian Union Muslim League, the VHP, the Ananda Marg and others. 

The move will have deleterious repercussions, as not only will government officials be permitted to join the RSS, but also all will view RSS membership as sure qualification for getting promotions and prize postings.

Adding fuel to the fire, in the recently–concluded ‘sankalp shibir’ held in Ahmedabad, Keshubhai Patel donned the RSS khaki shorts and white shirt and played generous host to the 30,000 RSS ‘swayamsevaks’ who marched triumphantly through Ahmedabad’s streets, while the RSS leaders boasted of establishing RSS ‘shakhas’ in every village of Gujarat by the year 2005.

While the Union government has been drawing flak for its handling of the hijacking crisis, the RSS chief, Rajendra Singh, termed the compromise as an example of ‘Hindu cowardice’. Immediately, an ominous “Regulation of Public Religious Buildings and Places Bill” was passed in the UP Assembly on the grounds that ISI activities were escalating in masjids and madrassas along the Nepal border. Indeed, the Parivar has capitalised on anything and everything from Kargil to Kandahar. Political analysts predict that the same bill will be passed in Pakistan-bordered Gujarat, too, providing a battering–ram for demolishing Christian places of worship. 

Gujarat has always been a treasured launching pad and testing-ground for the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ programmes. The success is amazing and alarming. L.K. Advani’s ‘rath yatra’, launched from Dwarka, got the Hindutva juggernaut rolling in Gujarat, resulting in the Muslim massacre of 1992 in Surat, the Christian baiting of 1998 in South Gujarat, a debate on conversions, a ‘Christian census’ and a conversion bill in 1999 and the legitimisation of RSS activities at the very dawn of 2000. 

Rural Gujarat needs vidyalayas and bal mandirs rather ‘shilanyas’ and ‘Hanuman mandirs’. Much can be done if everyone seriously opens doors and sets about building bridges for a peaceful and prosperous third millennium. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, January 2000. Year 7  No, 55,  Special Report

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