One of the most disturbing and sinister truths about some prominent masterminds behind the Gujarat carnage was the fact that many of them hailed from the medical profession and, despite their professional allegiance to the Hippocratic oath, violated it to lead mobs to rape, pillage, maim and kill and that too, in the most barbaric ways. Dr. Praveen Togadia, Dr. Jaideep Patel, Dr. Amita Patel and Dr. Bhartibehn, Dr. Maya Kotdani (the latter three are BJP MLAs) are all doctors by profession who were named by victims as masterminds and leaders in brutal crimes.
Dr. Praveen Togadia, international general secretary of the VHP, is well- known for his frequent threats of hatred and violence. He is a cancer surgeon by profession and also owns the Dhanvantri Hospital at India Colony, Ahmedabad. Doctors belonging to the Muslim minority testified to the fact that, on February 28, Shri Togadia had put in an ad–slide of his, which was telecast on Citicable in Ahmedabad city, asking all doctors and nurses to report to his hospital. He was making this appeal to all doctors. Many witnesses who deposed before us raised the question of whether this was also part of a master plan, to keep, through threats and warnings, Hindu doctors away from Muslim–run hospitals.

Justice AP Ravani spoke of his personal acquaintance and knowledge of (Hindu) doctors being threatened and told (by the VHP) not to treat Muslims. He knew of one doctor in the Shahibag area who must have attended to 17–20 deliveries for women staying in camps. The doctor was personally threatened by Shri Togadia himself, “Stop this, otherwise consequences will not be good.” Other doctors have also confided to Justice Ravani saying they too had received similar threats.

Soon after the bodies of the kar sevaks had been cremated, from the evening of February 28, the bodies of another set of victims started pouring in, this time bearing another identity. They were Muslims from Chamanpura, Rakhial, Bapunagar, Behrampura, and late, at night, Naroda Gaon and Naroda Patiya. 

The ‘borders’ drawn within Ahmedabad have ensured a severely ghettoised existence. This has been an unfortunate fact for the past three decades and it has had serious implications for inter–community interaction and relations. In the recent state–sponsored genocide, it was used cleverly by large, well–organised and well–armed mobs numbering several thousand, through bloodshed, violence and intimidation, to restrict the passage of ambulances from the inner, old city to either the Vadilal Sarabhai (VS) Hospital or the Sola Civil Hospital. This was another cruel method of preventing victims from receiving urgent medical attention.

At least six injured persons rescued from Chamanpura (Gulberg society), testified before the Tribunal confirming that the VS Hospital had refused them treatment, demanding that a police statement be obtained first. This, from a group of persons who had been brutalised and traumatised, having been witness to 60–70 of their close relations or neighbours stripped, raped, cut into pieces, and burnt alive.

One eyewitness from Jamalpur stated, “The worst conduct was at the Sola Civil Hospital. Here Bharti behn and Anita behn, both BJP corporators (Bharti behn is from Mani Nagar), were actually telling doctors whom to treat or not to treat.” At the VS Hospital, which gave more access to the minorities initially due to the presence of Congress corporators on the hospital’s managerial board, there were attempts to deny treatment to Muslims that were not entirely successful.

Even in the second week of April, while violence in the city of Ahmedabad had trickled down to stray incidents, fear stalked public spaces — hospitals, schools, government offices and even the Gujarat High Court. One witness told the Tribunal that on April 11, groups of 15-20, armed with unsheathed swords, stalked the corridors of the VS Hospital each night and no one challenged them. They did not directly harm or kill but the message spread through nurses and class IV staff was that the area was out of bounds for the marked — the Muslim population in Gujarat.
But no incident can typify the extent of communalisation of hospitals more than the brutal murder of a Muslim who had brought a severely injured person to the VS Hospital by ambulance on May 7, while the Tribunal sat. The youth was stabbed when he alighted from an ambulance carrying a patient who had been stabbed in the Juhapura locality. The assailants were sangh parivar activists who were demonstrating against the alleged “partisan attitude” of the hospital authorities against Hindu patients. 

As bad as the perpetration of crimes by medical professionals during the Gujarat carnage, and the attempts to brutally communalise hospital spaces, were the attempt by the police in Ahmedabad and Vadodara to actually harass and stop ambulance services belonging to the minority community. At the height of the carnage, these ambulance services were the only ones to provide desperately needed medical support, reaching help, saving groups, carrying mutilated bodies, etc. The fact that even they were stopped, as were trucks carrying relief, indicated the premeditation of the carnage at the very top levels as also the genocidal nature of its entire execution.

Several witnesses who deposed before us actually detailed how, in Ahmedabad, one police officer, stopped the Nobel Ambulance Service personnel at Bawa Lababi to prevent it from reaching Danilimda, Char Rasta, Sardarbridge and Calico, despite the fact that they had curfew passes.
The Tribunal recorded the written statement of Dr. Ishaq Shaikh, vice-president, Al Ameen Garib Niwas General Hospital, Ahmedabad. This 40-bed hospital had over-stretched itself in service of the community from February 28 onwards. He described how, from 12.30 p.m., there was a flood of patients – virtually a patient per minute. With this pressure they had to make painful decisions of which patients to treat and which to leave to their fate.

Twice on February 28, when Dr. Shaikh tried to drive a grievously injured patient to the Vadilal Sarabhai Hospital in his ambulance, he was attacked at Raipur between 4 and 5 p.m. When this happened a second time, mayor Himmatsingh Patel helped them out by calling for an ambulance from the Ahmedabad municipal corporation.

A severe strain on community health services was evidenced during and after the carnage, with the state abdicating its primary role. In the numerous relief camps that sprung up across the city/state, there was a severe problem of clean drinking water, sanitation facilities and adequate food. Children were suffering from jaundice, a water-borne disease, diarrhoea and dehydration. One child died in a camp in mid-April. The strain on small privately run hospitals increased. On April 3, Dr. Shaikh was brutally beaten by inspectors Modi and Parmar as he tried to take his ambulance to Shamser Bagh, Gomtipur, where two persons had been shot in the leg. He was pounced upon by the police and beaten badly. 

Justice AP Ravani spoke of his personal acquaintance and knowledge of (Hindu) doctors being threatened and told (by the VHP) not to treat Muslims. 

This most appalling state of affairs can be appreciated and properly understood from the fact that victims and doctors had petitioned the NHRC, pleading for SRP protection within hospitals. This is a sad commentary on the situation in Gujarat during those months, and reflects the depth of communalisation of Gujarati state and society. Muslims were terrified to go to government run hospitals to claim their dead because systematic efforts were made to create an atmosphere of dread and terror there. Menacing groups of Bajrang Dal and VHP youths would stalk the casualty departments of hospitals, 50–60 at a time.

In 1992, this sense of fear did not prevail within hospitals. 
There were countless injuries caused by swords. The mutilation of breasts in the case of women was common. There were some cases of mutilation of the penis. In yet another Vadodara hospital, a doctor conducted 17 post-mortems, the majority of whom were women who had been gang-raped. There were three survivors of gang rape. In one case, the police had intervened and saved the victim from death. A woman from Kheda district who was gang raped, had her head shaved and an Om cut into her head with a knife by the rapists. She died a few days after she was admitted to hospital. There were other instances of Om engraved with a knife on the back and other parts of women’s bodies, as well as of some men. According to the doctors, the deaths of the few Hindus, both men and women, who were admitted to hospital, were of people who had disobeyed prohibitory orders and fell victim to violent circumstances.   

Dr. Ali Shaikh, Vadodara, a witness who appeared before the Tribunal, ran a 15-bed nursing home in a building near the Panigate police station in Vadodara. The building is just five minutes away from the police station, and all the vehicles, mobile vans etc. belonging to the police station were usually parked outside it. Despite this, his clinic and everything inside it, including the ICU and expensive medical equipment, was looted or destroyed on March 1. Two days later, the nursing home was burnt. As of May, the police had not taken any action in the matter. The witness tried to return to the premises about three weeks later and to resume his practice, when he was assaulted by a group of people. He and his son had a narrow escape. 

The Tribunal records with shock and horror that, two-and-a-half months after the crimes, even when insurance officials  visited the building for a survey, the crowd, comprising of local people who lived around the clinic, did not allow them to enter the premises. That these incidents could occur in such close proximity to the Panigate police station makes the whole situation almost farcical. Another community health centre — the Muslim medical centre in Bhoiwada was also destroyed and burnt.

The Gujarat government is culpable of failure to protect the lives of at least 2,000 victims. It is also guilty of failure to provide medical aid and relief to victim-survivors in life–threatening situations. 
To allow the spaces occupied by doctors and hospitals, which are sacred by sheer nature of the job they do, to be vitiated by hate speech and propaganda sounds a serious warning to the extent of percolation of communal ideology in  Gujarat.
The fact that many leaders and perpetrators of the crimes are doctors surely behoves upon the Indian Medical Association to initiate disciplinary action against them for never can the mandate of a doctor, who’s first job is to save and preserve life, become exactly the opposite — of being the one to snatch life away.      

Archived from Communalism Combat, November-December 2002 Year 9  No. 81-82, Communalisation of Public Space, Hospitals

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Archived from Communalism Combat, November-December 2002 Year 9  No. 81-82, The Accused, Politicians & Others

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Archived from Communalism Combat, November-December 2002 Year 9  No. 81-82, The Accused, Policemen & Bureaucrats

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Archived from Communalism Combat, November-December 2002 Year 9  No. 81-82, Recommendations, Long Term,

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Archived from Communalism Combat, November-December 2002 Year 9  No. 81-82, Recommendations, Short Term,

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Nothing but Genocide

• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• Forcibly transferring children of one group to another group.
• The Convention has also enumerated the offences that are punishable and they are 
• Genocide;
• Conspiracy to commit genocide;
• Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
• Attempt to commit genocide;
• Complicity in genocide.”

Under the Convention, the acts that are punishable are, genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, the direct and public incitement to commit genocide, the attempt to commit genocide and complicity in genocide. The persons who can be punished for these crimes are any of the persons committing any of the above acts, even if they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.

Under the Convention, it is a responsibility of member states to make legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present legislation; and to provide penalties to persons responsible to be tried by a competent tribunal of the state, or such international penal tribunals whose jurisdiction the contracting party may have accepted.

To prove the crime of genocide, there has to be evidence of the physical destruction of a section, community, racial or ethnic group as well as the evidence of mental harm.  At the crux of it all, the evidence needs to point to an “intention” to destroy and harm; it is a crime not computed in numbers of dead or harmed but in the intention and desire to commit it — the sheer planning, pre–meditation, extent and thoroughness of the killings. 

Genocide is a crime not computed in numbers of dead or harmed but in the intention and desire to commit it — the sheer planning, pre–meditation, extent and thoroughness of the killings. 

The Gujarat carnage was especially coloured by state complicity in the violence, premeditation and planning behind the attacks on the lives, dignity, livelihoods, businesses and properties of a section of the population — Muslims — and a selective assault on their religious and cultural places of worship. Muslim women were targeted as objects of their community and similarly abused with an inhuman level of violence and sexual crimes. Economic and social boycott of the community was openly encouraged and continues in many parts of Gujarat, to date. Agricultural land holdings of Muslims, small and large have been taken over by dominant community and caste groups. Livelihood for Muslims has been snatched away and there is a clearcut and ongoing design to economically cripple the community.

The chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Narendra Modi has been held by this Tribunal to be directly responsible, along with cabinet colleagues, and organisations that he leads and patronises — the BJP, RSS, VHP and BD. For all these reasons together there is no way that the post–Godhra carnage in Gujarat can escape being called squarely what it was — Crimes against Humanity and Genocide.

The case for genocide against the VHP and the Bajrang Dal as well as Shri Narendra Modi and members of his cabinet is being made for the following reasons:

• There have been a number of statements and pamphlets from the VHP and the BD and its leaders in the past, which establish that they have been consistently against the Muslim community, making them the target of verbal and physical attacks and have been provoking people to economically and physically attack Muslims and, thereafter, subject them to economic and social boycott.
• There is sufficient evidence to show that the carnage in Gujarat, post–February 27, was led by theVHP and the Bajrang Dal.
• The carnage was at six levels: Physical destruction of a part of the community; economic destruction; sexual violence and rape of a large number of Muslim women; cultural and religious destruction; resistance to rehabilitation; publicly declared desire to physically and morally destroy the Muslim community of Gujarat.
• The offences that were committed in the first flush of organised violence continue at a lower intensity under the same political dispensation even today (See Detailed Annexures: Status of Refugee Survey, Volume III).
• The chief minister is equally liable for prosecution for genocide for the following reasons:
• Refusal to take any preventive measures and protect the lives and properties of Muslims;
• Connivance in and facilitation of the carnage;
• Transfer of good police officers;
• No action against erring police officers or party functionaries who were named by victims;
• Persistent threats to close down privately run relief camps;
• Abusive comments against the affected and victimised community that qualify as Hate Speech;
• Refusal to comply with the NHRC recommendations;
• Total failure in the provision of relief and rehabilitation;
• Absence of punitive action against provocative press and other organisations;
• Influencing criminal investigation — the omission of the names of VHP/RSS/BJP functionaries from charge-sheets although their names appear in FIRs.
• The case for the Gujarat carnage being nothing short of genocide is clinched by the fact that Muslim journalists, Muslim police officers, Muslim bureucrats, Muslim teachers have had to function only after concealing or changing their identities and this continues to be a trend even now.

Considering these facts and the distinct tendency and trends that mass crimes committed against marginalised groups have taken in past years, it is a grave lapse on the part of the government of India, which has, to date, not enacted any law in compliance with Article V of the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948. India has signed the Genocide Convention in 1948 and ratified it in 1958. Under the Convention, a state that is signatory is bound to effectively act upon and legislate upon the intents of the legislation. So far, India has not enacted any law in compliance with the Convention. 

Note on the International Criminal Court
The ICC came into existence from July 1, 2002. India has, however, refused to ratify the treaty. Under the treaty, any person can be tried and punished for crimes against humanity, acts of genocide, etc. before the International Court, irrespective of where the crime is committed. India, not being a ratifying party, cannot be forced to hand over any person charged or convicted to this Court. 

The genocide in Gujarat could not have been taken up at the ICC since the Court came into being only on July 1, 2002. However, since it is not the first time that mass crimes of this kind have been allowed and condoned internally, it is vital, as a safeguard for the future, that India ratifies the ICC treaty and subjects itself to international scrutiny, especially in respect of heinous crimes committed by government functionaries. If the carnage in Gujarat had taken place post-July 2002, and India had still not ratified the ICC treaty and acceded to the Court, the issue could have come up through the UN Security Council reference.     

Archived from Communalism Combat, November-December 2002 Year 9  No. 81-82, Genocide

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From the evidence placed before the Tribunal, it is evident that a full catalogue of the words and deeds of the sangh parivar in the last four years, and the BJP government’s unabashed support and encouragement to these on the one hand, and dogged refusal to book the perpetrators of hatred and violence on the other, is itself an appropriate subject for a separate report. Given below are mere examples to illustrate how the calculated spreading poison has been systematic and sustained, especially since 1998.  

Targeting the Minorities
The whole of 1998 and 1999 saw a spate of attacks on minorities, especially on Christian institutions and Christian religious persons in remote areas of Gujarat state, as well as in cities like Rajkot and Ahmedabad. But no action was taken by the state government against the offenders. 
Around Christmas time in 1998, 17 churches were destroyed in Dangs in south Gujarat in a concerted attack on the minority led by VHP leaders Janubhai Pawar and Swami Aseemanand.      
 
During 1998, as part of the attacks on Christians by the BD, VHP, RSS, and BJP all over Gujarat, some incidents took place in Vadodara as well. One of the major incidents was the attack on the five-day National Convention of Christians (Alpha Group). The gang, led by Shri Niraj Jain (VHP leader) and others allegedly belonging to the VHP and Bajrang Dal, started threatening the participants to stop the convention and quit as “they resorted to forcible conversions of Hindus to Christianity.” Police supported them. 

In many parts of Gujarat, the police visited Christian institutions at Christmas time (1998) asking how many people attended Christmas mass. Should this be allowed in a country that calls itself both secular and democratic? Each act of violence over the past four years was preceded by hate-mongering and vicious propaganda through pamphlets signed by Janubhai Pawar of the Hindu Jagran Manch (VHP). No action was taken until a year later; in December 1999, he was arrested at Dangs before Christmas. 

Social and economic boycott enforced through terror and violence is happening every other day in BJP–ruled Gujarat, where the writ of the RSS runs large.

A private members Bill, “to prevent conversion by coercion or force”, but which did not consider conversion to Hinduism an offence, was sought to be rushed through the state legislature in November-December 1999. It was ultimately held back because of the outcry by local groups. The campaigners pointed out that existing provisions within the Indian Constitution were adequate to prevent conversions by inducements and coercion and that the maximum number of conversions, post-Independence, have been of tribals to Hinduism.

In August 2000, Pakistan–trained terrorists shot down 33 Hindu pilgrims in Kashmir and in the cross fire another 100 died. The VHP leader, Shri Praveen Togadia, took it upon his organisation to ‘avenge’ these deaths and targeted unsuspecting Muslims of Gujarat. At a press conference in Ahmedabad on August 1, 2000, he declared, “We will give a fitting reply to these killings here, in Gujarat.” For the next ten days, the law and order machinery was held to ransom, as gangs of the RSS/VHP/BD led by elected representatives of the BJP destroyed Rs. 15 crore worth of Muslim property in Surat, Ahmedabad, Khhedbrahma, Lambadiya, Rajkot, Porbander and other Gujarat cities. Not a rupee in compensation was paid to any of the victims. Leaders and activists of RSS/VHP/BD figure in the FIRs of the police, yet no action has been initiated against them.

In September 1999, police fired 80 rounds of bullets on Muslims from Rajpurani Pole near Mandvi, in Vadodara to stop any Muslim who would come out on the road to save his/her property or to protect the Jumma Masjid. Shri Nalin Bhatt, then a minister in the state government, personally directed the firing by the police. He even made the statement, “Muslims have no place in Hindustan. Either they go to Pakistan or Kabrastan (graveyard).” In the current riots, some BJP leaders and members of violent mobs made similar statements.

Enforcing Ghettoisation 
On February 8, 2000, a horde of people ransacked the homes of Muslim families who had bought homes in Paldi, a posh and predominantly Hindu inhabited locality of Ahmedabad. The families who had just bought a flat there were terrorised, their belongings destroyed. Two municipal corporators of the BJP led the mob, shouting, ‘Jai Sri Ram!’ One senior VHP leader was also present. The motive was to terrorise Muslims to move out of a pre–dominantly Hindu locality. (The Asian Age, February 9, 2000).

What happened in Paldi is becoming more and more common all over Gujarat state. This violates Article 14 (Equality before the law), Article 15 (Non–Discrimination on grounds of religion, race, gender, caste), Article 16 (Equality of opportunity in matters of employment), Article 19  (Protection of the freedom of speech, expression and movement), Article 21 (Protection of life and personal liberty), Article 22 (Protection against arrest and detention), Article 25 (Freedom of conscience and freedom of religion).

This was not an isolated incident. Social and economic boycott enforced through terror and violence is happening every other day in BJP–ruled Gujarat, where the writ of the RSS runs large.

Encouraging the RSS
In early December 2000, the then CM Keshubhai Patel took the lead in lifting the ban on government servants from joining the RSS. In response to a national outcry within and outside the Indian Parliament, on December 15, 2000, the Prime Minister, Shri Vajpayee, assured the Indian Parliament that there was no question of army or government officials being allowed to join the RSS. On February 6, 2000, Shri Vajpayee announced that he saw nothing wrong in the move since the RSS was a cultural organisation. However, the BJP government in Gujarat was forced to rescind its earlier directive following relentless pressure from the opposition parties and even some of the BJP’s NDA allies.

Soon after the Gujarat government announced its no ban on government servants from joining the RSS policy; it played the role of a generous host at a national meet of the RSS, an organisation that openly espouses its goal of a Hindu State. Photographs of the then union home minister, Shri LK Advani, standing alongside the then chief minister Shri Keshubhai Patel (the latter donned in the trademark khaki shorts of the RSS), at the head of the rally, were published by major national newspapers throughout the country. 

On January 11, 2000, following its convention, the RSS heaped lavish praise on the state government for the “free services” it provided to the three-day ‘Sankalp Shibir’. Pucca roads were laid overnight especially for the event and free drinking water and sanitation services provided. The Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation stationed 260 new buses at the venue to facilitate transportation of participants. This amounted to a blatant misuse of government and semi-government machinery. Billboards put up by the VHP all over Gujarat since 1998, proudly proclaim: ‘Welcome to Hindu Rashtra’. (‘Welcome to a Hindu State’).

Discrimination Politics
The Gujarat government has also taken a series of administrative measures that directly violate the Constitution. These are:

• A selective census specially directed at Christians and Muslims in the state.
• A selective census of SCs and STs initiated to ascertain ‘when they converted to Islam or Christianity.’
• A directive to the state police asking them to ‘investigate’ every case of inter–religious marriage. This followed spurious propaganda by the RSS–VHP–Hindu Jagran Manch combine that Muslims were abducting and marrying Hindu girls in order to convert them to Islam, while Christians were guilty of forced conversion. 
• Inter–community marriages between couples are frowned upon by the state. In 1998, the government directed the police to set up a special cell to investigate every case of inter–community marriage. Recently a Christian groom was forced to convert to Hinduism even after his marriage to a Hindu girl took place in a civil ceremony before the courts. 

Imposing Hindutva 
Muslim children have had to sit for exams on Id day. A few years ago, the Gujarat government also tried to remove Good Friday from its list of public holidays. A volley of protests from the Christians forced them to shelve the plan.
In January 2001, the education department of the Gujarat government issued a circular, directing all schools in the state to subscribe to the RSS mouthpiece, Sadhana. The directive was allowed to lapse thanks to widespread criticism and protest.
In January 2002¸ the Gujarat state’s education department ordered that all grant-in-aid schools must perform dharti poojan on January 26, the day on which a killer earthquake had devastated Gujarat a year ago. The fact that such activity is contrary to the practice of religious minorities was deliberately ignored. A government circular issued earlier this year, informed tribal welfare institutions receiving grants from the government that a part of the sanctioned amount this time would be paid to them in kind — copies of Hindu scriptures.                      

Archived from Communalism Combat, November-December 2002 Year 9  No. 81-82, Build-Up in Gujarat

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The Tribunal recommends that all the recommendations made by the Editors’ Guild in its report on the Gujarat carnage be implemented. On February 28, the two largest circulation, multiple-edition Gujarati newspapers, Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar, which are fairly dependent on the state government’s largesse, played up the unsubstantiated official version of there being a ‘foreign hand’ behind the Godhra tragedy. It was only 3-4 weeks later that reports rubbishing this theory began to appear in newspapers. But by that time, the damage had already been done.

Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar have been playing a blatantly communal role since the BJP returned to power in Gujarat in 1998. The BJP government’s patronage of these dailies needs to be looked into carefully, so that they do not continue to act as mere government agents. In the recent carnage, too, the role of Sandesh was particularly mischievous, while some smaller circulation newspapers like Gujarat Today, Sadhbhav and Gujarat Mitra acted responsibly. 

On February 28, the day after the Godhra tragedy, Sandesh published photographs of the burning coach of the Sabarmati Express with the headline, ‘Fifty Hindus burnt alive’ above the masthead. Besides, it also had a gruesome colour spread of photographs of the Godhra corpses. This was the first major breach of media ethics and law in the context of the Gujarat carnage. Witnesses told the Tribunal that copies of this issue of Sandesh were widely photocopied and flaunted by cadres of the RSS/VHP and BD in rural areas, to provoke anger and prompt the participation of ordinary people in the carnage that followed. 

In the same issue, another front page headline that read, ‘From among those abducted from the Sabarmati Express, two dead bodies of Hindu girls found near Kalol in mutilated state’ had the following report: “Vadodara, Thursday: News about the dead bodies of two girls, abducted from the bogies during the attack on the Sabarmati Express yesterday, found in a mutilated and terribly disfigured form near a pond in Kalol, has added fuel to the already volatile situation of tension, not only in Panchmahal, but in the whole state. In an act of inhumanity that would make even a devil weep, both girls had their breasts cut off. It is evident from the dead bodies that the victims had been repeatedly raped. There is speculation that the girls might have died because of gross sexual abuse.” After investigations, the police found the report to be entirely baseless. 

The police, too, stands indicted in this case by choosing to remain silent and doing nothing to expose the newspaper and initiate action against it for publishing a totally baseless but highly inflammatory story. Meanwhile, Sandesh continued, unchecked, to paint Muslims as murderers and traitors. On March 1, a report titled, ‘Call from the mosque: Slay the non-believers — Islam is in trouble’ told its readers: “On February 27, at 11.30 a.m., a mosque located along the railway tracks incited a crowd with the call: ‘Slay the non-believers… Islam is in danger.’ Responding to the call, the crowd attacked the surviving Ram sevaks from the torched train compartments, who were sitting by the railway tracks.” This, too, was a story without any basis. 

On March 7, Sandesh carried a report with a damaging headline, suggesting that Indian Muslims returning from the Haj pilgrimage could be a potential ‘terrorist’ threat to Hindus. Titled, ‘Hindus in danger! Possibility of attack with terrorists’ support! Frightening scheme of attack by returning Hajis!’ 

‘When Muslim leaders shouted slogans like ‘Hindustan Zindabad!’, read a Sandesh headline on March 8. The report said that the Circuit House witnessed ‘an unprecedented event’, when Muslim leaders of the city came together to shout slogans like the one mentioned above, and appeal for peace. The implication was clear: that Muslims are inherently anti-national and violent, whose raising of patriotic slogans and appealing for peace was ‘unprecedented’. 

Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar have been playing a blatantly communal role since the BJP returned to power in Gujarat in 1998. In the recent carnage, the role of Sandesh was particularly mischievous; some smaller circulation newspapers like Gujarat Today, Sadhbhav and Gujarat Mitra acted responsibly. 

Typically, the opening lines of most reports concerning the post-Godhra violence began with, “In the continuing spiral of communal rioting that broke out as a reaction to the demonic (or barbaric) Godhra incident…” The denunciatory words used liberally to describe the Godhra incident were strikingly absent when reporting the subsequent genocide. Clearly, like the Gujarat government, Sandesh, too, continued to justify the carnage in the rest of Gujarat as a ‘reaction’ to the heinous arson in Godhra. 

Inflammatory tactics were used consistently by Sandesh. Reports on gruesome acts, like the burning alive of people, were published in bold letters, under banner headlines. Photographs of burnt, mangled bodies were a regular feature on the front page, or the last page reserved for important local news. In the first week of violence in the state, Sandesh published colour photographs of scenes of the carnage, superimposed with a ‘burst’ giving readers the latest figure of casualties. Photographs of trishul-wielding ‘Ram sevaks’ were splashed on the front pages in the first week. The photographs served to instill terror amongst Muslims and to provoke intense passions and mutual hostility between the two communities.

​Sandesh did worse than ignore the journalistic code of conduct that prohibits naming the communities involved in violent conflagrations. It published reports like: ‘a mob of religious fanatics’ (read Muslims) who were abducting tribal women, having to face the wrath of the people; or:  ‘religious fanatics’ about to attack a temple causing tension in certain areas in Vadodara city, bringing ‘devotees’ (read Hindus) out on the street to protect their place of worship.

Throughout the violence, Sandesh cynically propagated the idea of Muslims being anti–national and pro–Pakistan. Areas in the city or the state with a sizeable Muslim population were described as ‘mini-Pakistan’. On March 7, a report claimed to have discovered Godhra’s ‘Karachi connection’: an entire area in Karachi named Godhra. On March 1, the headline of a news item claimed that a ‘mini-Pakistan’ was in existence in the Navayard area of the city. The article went on to say that such ‘pockets’ were being created in the city, and asked the police to take note of the ‘criminal’ UP migrant labourers who lived in this area. That Muslims in such bastis were living in complete terror at the time, was a trivial detail the Sandesh reports had no use for. 

On March 1, a report claimed that the entire Sabarmati Express would have been put to flames had it not been delayed. The headline claimed, ‘A mob of 7-8,000 was waiting for the Sabarmati Express to arrive at Godhra.’ The mob, Sandesh reminded its readers, was made up of ‘religious fanatics’. 

Gujarat Samachar, the other leading Gujarati paper, also played a role in inflaming passions, though not as consistently as Sandesh. Reportage on the Godhra incident, in particular, was inflammatory and irresponsible. But it also carried reports highlighting the need for communal harmony.
On February 28, the lead story on page 1 carried the headline, ‘3–4 young girls kidnapped.’ The source of this information was not mentioned. On page 10, a report quoted VHP leader, Shri Kaushik Patel, who claimed that 10 girls had been kidnapped. The reporter, evidently, had not cross–checked the concocted claims, either with the IGP or the railway police. The report did not mention the names of any of the girls or any other details about the alleged kidnapping. 

On March 6, the Gujarat Samachar carried a report on the last page with the headline, ‘The Plan was to torch the whole train, not just one bogie.’ A box item on the last page stated that, ‘a mob was ready for the second attack.’ Again, the source of information was not mentioned; the tone and tenor of the reports, however, suggested they were reports based on careful investigation. 

Throughout the violence, Sandesh cynically propagated the idea of Muslims being anti–national and pro–Pakistan. Areas in the city or the state with a sizeable Muslim population were described as ‘mini-Pakistan’.

On March 7, Gujarat Samachar carried a box item on the last page, claiming that, “ISI is creating trouble in Gujarat; Kalota and his colleagues are important link; the deputy commander of ‘Huji’, arrested in Kolkata, has confessed to the conspiracy.” The report uses the term ‘Rambhakt’ several times for the travellers on the Sabarmati Express on that fateful day. On March 6, the headline of a report read ‘Torching of the train at Godhra was pre-planned. Kalota was tipped off by a railway officer on how to cut open the vacuum pipes.’ The source of information was not mentioned.

On March 16, a page 1 story titled, ‘Indiscriminate firing from Fatehganj Mosque,’ was a complete fabrication.

On March 18, a photograph on page 1 showing bombs recovered by police during combing operations in the Danilimda area of Ahmedabad, had a caption that said: “People talking of secularism should be asked if protecting criminals is secularism.”

There were many other stories that contributed actively to the belief that Muslims were mobilising on a large scale to attack Hindus. It is evident from the communal pogroms and conflicts in recent years, that a section of the mass media is being increasingly used to peddle the familiar communal tactic of depicting the victim as the aggressor and vice versa. On March 24, a heading on page 1 of Gujarat Samachar read, ‘Sat Kaival temple receives threat; Sarsa temple and pathshala under threat of being blown up using remote control.’ And a heading on page 2 in the same issue read, ‘Possibility of attack with deadly weapons; Secret agencies receive information; Religious and educational institutions will be targeted. All DSPs alerted.’ On March 26, Gujarat Samachar had a story on the last page, ‘Sabarmati Express incident was nothing but a pre–planned incident; many youths ready to commit crimes on just one signal from Bilal.’ There was absolutely no basis to any of these reports.

However, unlike Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar also carried some positive stories. Here are some examples: 

• Muslims saved a Hindu shopkeeper’s shop in Halol. (March 2, p.5)
• Residents of Ram–Rahim tekra in Ahmedabad are an example of communal harmony. (March 5, p.1).
• Hindus saved the life of a Muslim woman in Halol. (March 5, p.5).
• No one wants riots. Rare scenes of communal harmony in sensitive areas of the city. (March 6, last page).
• Elol village near Himmatnagar is an example of communal harmony. (March 6, p.5).
• A Muslim woman offered shelter to a Hindu family. (March 7, p.3)
• At Bhoj village in Padra taluka, Muslims were given shelter in a temple. (March 7, p.8).
• “Oh! He is our Rahim Chacha… our guruji…” and they saved him. (March 10, p.11; An article by Bhaven Kachchhi in Sunday supplement.)
• At Lilapir Dargah of Talaja, devotees include all — Hindus and Muslims. (March 11, p.5).
• An old Muslim woman saved from a mob by a Hindu youth. (March 22, p.2)
• A pregnant lady taken to hospital by a Muslim youth risking his life. (March 28)

Gujarat Today is an 11–year–old Gujarati daily with a claimed circulation of 70,000. It is published by the Lokhit Prakashan Trust, Ahmedabad. The paper was started by Muslim liberals, and is probably the only Gujarati daily with a large Muslim readership. The paper carries news from villages and district towns that are not generally covered by the mainstream media. Given that Muslims constitute the vast majority of the readers of Gujarat Today, the role it played during the carnage is particularly noteworthy and significant
There was no editorial on the Godhra carnage on February 28, to condemn the heinous crime of torching a train compartment, whatever the provocation. Principles apart, the daily, it would seem, was even oblivious to the enormous communal consequences of what had happened. However, thereafter, the extensive coverage of the incidents, helplines and information about the police and the administration was factual.

The daily also made a consistent effort to report on instances of communal harmony, and to project the view of Hindu liberals and progressives who were critical of the Hindutva project in Gujarat. Some examples are reports on: how the lives and properties of 175 Muslims of Naroda in Ahmedabad were protected by local shepherds; how Hindu doctors in Bhavnagar saved properties from burning and made efforts to treat the injured; relief in the form of foodgrain and clothes provided by Hindus to victims in Jhagadia; a group marriage of Hindu and Muslim youths in Mangrol.  
Also reported was news from Prantij, where a woman sarpanch successfully stopped riots occurring in her village. The March 8 edition carried news items about peace committees in Vagra, Palej, Dholka and Bharuch. On March 10, the paper had a report on how Hindu families saved the lives of 15 Muslims in Kavitha village near Borsad. While there were reports from Juhapura, of how Muslims saved Hindus, there was also a report on how looting of both Hindus and Muslims took place. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, November-December 2002 Year 9  No. 81-82, Role of Media

The March 12 issue carried news of a Hindu family in Dehgam, which sheltered 20 Muslims in their house, and a boxed item about a relief camp in Bhalej village, Kheda district, run by Hindus and Muslims. The March 15 issue had a report of how Muslim women saved the lives of Hindus. News of unity among the Hindus and Muslims of Lambadia and Sami was reported in other issues of the paper.

The Gujarat government, the Tribunal notes, was selective about action against TV channels and publications. While it banned some local TV channels, and also a national channel — Star News — on March 2, because it had exposed the government’s inaction, it took no action against newspapers like Sandesh. The ban was lifted on the assurance that the CM would be given a chance to air his views on the channel.

The English language newspapers, with their local editions in Gujarat, did a commendable job through most of that period.                     

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By March 1, a similar situation was observed in over one dozen districts of Gujarat. Independent sources show that outside Ahmedabad, as many as 76,000 refugees were housed in camps all over the state. Official figures put this amount at about 25,000. In any event, even by the state government’s own assessment, at least 91,000  persons were displaced as a direct result of the carnage. Independent assessments put these at closer to 1,74,000 refugees in the state of Gujarat after the first flush of brutal violence; a staggering figure by any standards.  Besides, not all the survivors moved into camps — many went to the homes of their relatives and so on. Including them in the calculation, independent estimates put the total number of displaced Muslims in Gujarat at not less that 2,50,000. 

In the days following the first bout of brutal violence, agents of the state, notably the collectors/district magistrates of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Mehsana, Himmatnagar, Anand, Sabarkantha, Banaskantha, Bharuch and Ankleshwar districts, as also the officials of some police stations, obstructed truckloads of privately mobilised relief material — milk, foodgrains, etc. —  from reaching the camps. Thereafter, the same officials harassed and penalised the refugees by, among other things, not giving them sufficient food. The conduct of these IAS and IPS officials calls for strong penal action.

The Tribunal is greatly concerned and outraged by the fact that only the leadership of the Muslim community was involved in the running of the relief camps because others did not come forward. Though some non–Muslim NGOs did contribute substantial amounts of aid to these relief camps right until August, the vast bulk of relief assistance to the refugees came from the community itself. 

For days and weeks, the Gujarat government adamantly refused to register the relief camps and denied relief assistance from state coffers. In blatant and brazen contrast to the Gujarat state’s attitude to the earthquake victims just one year earlier, when the ghastly earthquake of January 26, 2001 rocked the state, this time neither the Gujarat government nor the government of India applied to the UN and other international agencies for relief and rehabilitation measures. 

Equally, the Tribunal notes with concern and anguish that an insignificant number of international aid agencies came forward in the case of the Gujarat carnage, to help the victims. Given the scale of the state-perpetrated violence and given the response of international aid agencies to such carnages in other areas in the past, it was incumbent on them to provide relief and rehabilitation assistance to all those displaced and dispossessed by the communal carnage in Gujarat, without discrimination. 

Similarly, the fact that major national newspapers which, during such calamities in the past, have always set up independent relief funds, did not do so in the context of Gujarat 2002, speaks for the silence and complicity that surrounds relief and rehabilitation of the survivors of the Gujarat carnage. 

Six relief camps had to approach the Gujarat High Court (special civil applications 3773 of 2002) through a writ petition — supported by the Citizens for Justice and Peace — and a senior advocate had to be flown down from Mumbai for arguments, before the Gujarat government gave an assurance in court that it assumes responsibility for providing adequate relief to the camps. Justice Pradeep PB Majmudar delivered the order on this writ petition on April 22, 2002. 

‘‘What should we do? Run relief camps for them? Do we want to open baby producing centres?’’ — Chief Minister Narendra Modi

The first time that the Shri Modi condescended to visit the Shah–e–Alam Relief Camp in Ahmedabad city was a full month after the carnage broke out, on April 4. As recently as September 9, at Becharaji, Mehsana, during his Gujarat Gaurav Yatra, none other than the chief minister made a shocking public declaration: ‘‘What should we do? Run relief camps for them? Do we want to open baby producing centres?’’ 

Again on May 31, a public interest litigation (special civil application number 5311 of 2002) had to be filed in the Gujarat High Court by the Citizens for Justice and Peace and Communalism Combat to elicit an assurance from the state that relief camps would not be forcibly closed down. On June 4, the petitioners obtained an oral assurance from the government pleader that there would be no closure of the camps at least until June 30, 2002. It was on this precise date, that the state government began exerting pressure on camps and threatened penal measures against camp managers, if they did not ‘voluntarily’ sign a statement saying they wished to close down their camps. On June 26, when the matter came up for hearing, the petitioners, several camp managers and refugees filed 25 affidavits, detailing the extent of abdication of primary duty by the state and shocking instances of coercion and pressure being used against refugees and camp managers.

The writ petition pertaining to relief is still alive before the Gujarat High Court. 

Compensation
The Gujarat government showed itself in a crudely partisan and anti–constitutional light when it initially announced discriminatory amounts of compensation for the survivors of the Godhra tragedy and the post–Godhra carnage. Abdicating its primary role as protector and provider of all its citizenry, it has made no efforts to compute the extent of the loss of lives, the quantum of the destruction of homes, belongings, businesses and agricultural properties to date.

A measly Rs. 2,500 was given as dole to persons for loss of household goods (ghar vakhari) and, though the Prime Minister had announced that Rs. 50,000 would be given for loss of homes, less than 10 per cent of those who have obtained home compensation from the Gujarat government (at least 25 per cent of the total affected have not received anything at all) have got more than Rs. 30,000 each. For most of the survivors of the Gujarat carnage, the state government has rubbed salt on the wounds already suffered, by giving them paltry amounts of Rs. 1,200-2,500 each or less.

Rehabilitation
The Gujarat government has shown a similar callous indifference to the rehabilitation of the victims of continued violence. Barely a year ago, when a devastating earthquake struck the same state, the Gujarat government evolved an elaborate Earthquake-2001 Rehabilitation Package No. 1 for the earthquake affected and similar Packages No. 2, 3, 4, 4a, 4b, 5 followed. 

The Tribunal has closely examined these packages. Details of these seven-eight packages announced by the government of Gujarat, run by the same party, just over a year before the carnage, clearly establish how deeply discriminatory, callous and objectionable the conduct of the Gujarat government is in the context of the carnage.

By its behaviour and action, the government has made it clear that it wishes to have nothing to do with the physical and psychological rehabilitation of its own people, the Muslims of Gujarat. Shri Modi has made public pronouncements, stating that there was no question of his government either buying land to re-house survivors, for whom returning to a threatening environment is an impossibility, or of repairing or rebuilding mosques, dargahs and shrines that have been damaged.

Situation of Muslims in Gujarat
The Tribunal notes with concern and dismay, the continuing misery of the victim Muslim community in Gujarat. In areas where the most brutal incidents of mass killing, quartering and killings (often after sexual crimes against women and girls were committed) took place, statewide surveys by independent groups show that there is no question of the victimised section of residents returning to their original place of residence. 

These include survivors of Ghodasar, Sardarpura, Pandharwada, Ode, Sanjeli, Randhikpur and Chanasma massacres, as also residents of villages in Gandhinagar district itself, where Muslims were in a small and hopeless minority. They also include areas like Gulberg society, Ahmedabad. Though many residents of Naroda Gaon and Patiya have returned, this has been under duress, after the forced closure of the refugee camps where they had sought shelter. Many others have been rehabilitated by Muslim NGOs in different parts of Ahmedabad, while a significant number have migrated to other states.Agricultural land holdings owned by Muslims in districts are being callously taken over by miscreants and dominant interests.

In many villages, especially in Mehsana, Gandhinagar, Panchmahal and Dahod districts,  Muslims who have returned to their battered homes were facing a strictly enforced economic boycott by the dominant castes and communities through their refusal to buy milk products from them, to hire them as labour on their fields, etc. A near permanent loss of livelihood, and therefore a reduction to penury, was an imminent and serious likelihood. 

In welcome contrast to the above, in many regions of Sabarkantha and Banaskantha districts, it appears that a sincere effort was being made by members from the dominant community to isolate those in their midst who have led and fomented trouble, and to take a stand against violence in the future. In Chhotaudaipur, where sections of the Adivasi population have been misled and misused by dominant sections of their own and other castes, there has been a genuine expression of remorse, too, about the incident.

It is shocking and unfortunate that while the situation on the ground remains grim in the state, where no remorse has been expressed, no justice is in sight, where relief has only grudgingly been given and rehabilitation measures have been meagre, the sole desire of the government appeared to be to proclaim ‘normalcy’ before the country and the world. At no time was this babble of normalcy exposed more effectively than during the visit of the two teams of the Chief Election Commission to the state in August 2002. 

The story of Gujarat today, especially of cities like Ahmedabad, is one of brutally enforced ghettoisation of the Muslim minority in their residential colonies as much as in their business and trade enterprises. In parts of Ahmedabad, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Muslim minority to live, inhabit and move freely in areas that are now seen as “Hindu”. This state of affairs should be unacceptable in any part of Constitution–bound India.

For the religious minorities, the state of affairs in Gujarat is blatantly discriminatory and in violation of the Indian Constitution. The Tribunal regrets to record that with the connivance of the state, they have already been reduced to the status of second–class citizens. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, November-December 2002 Year 9  No. 81-82, Relief and Rehabilitation

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