Overview

NARENDRA MODI visited Godhra on the day of the burning of coach

S-6 of the Sabarmati Express. His outburst provided the first sign to
Sangh workers that the time to corner the Muslims had come

THAT VERY NIGHT, top BJP and Sangh leaders met at Ahmedabad,
Vadodara and Godhra, and gave the green signal for an all-out
assault on Muslims across the state

A STRATEGY was devised on how to shield the attackers from the

law after the riots. Prominent lawyers were briefed and senior
police officers taken into confidence. The cadres were told Modi was
squarely behind them

THE MOBILISATION of the under castes, something the Sangh had

been engaged in for years, dovetailed into the deep penetration
Hindutva already had among Gujarats higher castes. Godhra
provided the perfect spark to fuse them together

FROM THE very outset, the police played partisan, often joining the
mobs. Officers who tried to do their duty found their hands tied. The
complicity was led by then Ahmedabad Commissioner PC Pandey,
who ensured compliance by a swathe of junior officers

WEAPONS, FROM BOMBS to guns to trishuls, were either

manufactured and distributed by Sangh workers themselves, or
smuggled through Sangh channels from all over India. The Bajrang
Dal and the VHP already had a large cache of firearms and daggers

BJP AND SANGH LEADERS led the bloodthirsty mobs through

Ahmedabads bylanes, Sabarkanthas villages, Vadodaras localities.
The police stood guard to the mayhem
BJP MLA MAYABEN KODNANI drove around Ahmedabads Naroda
locality all day, directing the mobs. VHP leaders Atul Vaid and
Bharat Teli did the same at the Gulbarg Housing Society. None of
them ever went to jail

FIRE WAS THE MOST FAVOURED weapon in the rioters hands. That
cremation is considered un-Islamic fuelled their frenzy to burn.
Petrol and kerosene were lavishly used, as were the victims own
gas cylinders

BABU BAJRANGI reveals he collected 23 revolvers from Hindus in

Naroda Patiya. He called VHP general secretary Jaideep Patel 11
times and informed Gordhan Zadaphia, the then minister of state
for home, about the death toll
GOVERNMENT COUNSEL before the Nanavati-Shah Commission,
Arvind Pandya, himself worships Modi and describes Justice Shah as
our man. Nanavatis own report on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots is
gathering dust till today

Ahmedabad: Carnage Capital

ASHISH KHETAN

In Naroda, Gulbarg, Kalupur and Dariyapur, murderous mobs armed to the teeth
obeyed the Sangh Parivars every word

Muslims who had begged

police to protect them the
day before huddle in the
wreckage of their burned
out homes in Ahmedabad
Photo: Ami Vitale
THE MOST horrifying massacre of the Gujarat riots was the one at Naroda Gaon and
Naroda Patiya localities in Ahmedabad. A local Bajrang Dal leader, Babu Bajrangi, was
one of the main conspirators. He started planning the massacre soon after the news of
the Sabarmati incident broke. Starting in the evening of February 27, firearms and
inflammable material were collected; Bajrangi also formed a select team, drawn from
the cadre of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal. Members of the Chhara community, a
denotified criminal tribe, were also roped in. TEHELKA spoke to two of them, Suresh
Richard and Prakash Rathod. Both believed, and were made to believe, that by killing
Muslims they were doing a great service to Hinduism.

On February 28, 2002, Bajrangi marshalled a murderous mob through the narrow
bylanes of Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaon. Egging the mob on was also local BJP
MLA Mayaben Kodnani, who is also a doctor. Both Richard and Rathod have been
recorded on TEHELKAs spycam saying that Kodnani drove around Naroda all through
the day, urging the mob to hunt Muslims down and kill them. Kodnanis trusted
lieutenant, BJP member Bipin Panchal, was also present with his own small band of
followers, armed to the teeth. All through the massacre, Bajrangi and VHP state general
secretary Jaideep Patel were on the phone with each other. Bajrangi did not reveal
whether Patel was also involved in the planning. However, he did say that the death toll
was being communicated to Patel at regular intervals. Several survivors from Naroda
Gaon have identified Patel as the leader of the Naroda mob.

At the end of the day the total score as Bajrangi chose to term estimates of the
number of Muslims killed in Naroda was well over at least 200. This figure has not
been acknowledged by the state government; officially, 105 people were killed at
Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaon. Naroda, however, was far from the only Ahmedabad
locality to be turned into a mass incinerator. A few kilometres away, VHP leaders were
leading a frenzied mob at Meghaninagar. The target was a housing society called
Gulbarg, a building inhabited by Muslims.

TEHELKA stung three participants in the carnage Mangilal Jain, Prahlad Raju and
Madan Chawal all three local petty traders and all three with cases against them for
their part in the riots. They said they and other members of the mob had been led by
VHP leaders Atul Vaid and Bharat Teli, both of whom were named as accused in the FIR
but were subsequently cleared of all charges when the police filed the chargesheet.
Chawal gave a graphic description of how he and his accomplices first hacked former
Congress MP Ehsan Jafri apart limb from limb, and then made a heap of his body parts,
which they set on fire.

The official death toll of the Gulbarg massacre stood at 39, but the accused told
TEHELKA that the actual number of those killed was much higher. Apart from the
housing societys residents, the dead also included Muslims who lived in nearby slums
who had taken shelter in the building. TEHELKA also spoke to VHP leaders Rajendra
Vyas and Ramesh Dave, who planned attacks on Muslims in Kalupur and Dariyapur,
among Ahmedabads most communally sensitive areas. Ahmedabad city VHP president
Rajendra Vyas, who was also in charge of the ill-fated Sabarmati Express, said that on
the day of the fire on the train that killed 59 karsevaks, he had told the VHP cadre that
the Muslims had played a one-day match and given us a target of 60 runs. We shall
now have to play a test match and we wont stop until we score 600.

Vyas, who lives in Kalupur, was recorded on the TEHELKA camera stating that he
himself had shot dead five Muslims and had burned down nine Muslim houses. Ramesh
Dave was the VHPs point man in Dariyapur. He said he and his fellow planners had
targeted and killed Muslims who had been in their sights for over 20 years chun-
chun ke maara is baar (we specifically hunted them down). Dave also claimed that
along with a friend, he had arranged for about 10 small firearms.

Vadodara: Charred City

ASHISH KHETAN

Every Muslim locality was attacked in phases spread over two months. At Best Bakery,
14 people were burnt alive

THOUGH NOTHING could be compared to the violence unleashed in Ahmedabad,

Muslims in Vadodara the second largest city in Gujarat were also assaulted in a
phased manner. The first round, which started on February 27 itself, lasted until March
2, with the worst incident taking place on March 1, when 14 persons were burnt alive at
the Best Bakery in Hanuman Tekri. Thereafter there was violence between March 15-20
and, following this, between April 25-May 2, with some incidents taking place in the
intervening period, especially on March 25.

Almost every major Muslim locality of the city was attacked. Kisanwadi, Sama, Ashabiwi
Chawl, Madhavpur II, Makkarpura, Audhootnagar, Raghovpura, Noor Park, Karelibagh,
Gotri village, Hajimiyan ka Sara, Hanuman Tekri, Roshannagar, Panigate, Taiwada and
Macchipith were among the areas where Hindu mobs went on a rampage. Hundreds of
Muslim homes and businesses were looted and torched. In Sama, a relatively new part
of Vadodara with a predominantly Hindu population, a mob of around 20 people
attacked the residence of Prof JS Bandukwala, a professor of physics at the Maharaja
Sayajirao University (MSU) and a respected figure in Vadodara, on the morning of
February 28. The mob left after Prof Bandukwala and his daughter managed to take
shelter in their Hindu neighbours house.

However, on the following day, March 1, a larger mob, armed with gas cylinders among
other weaponry, launched a second assault and succeeded in torching Bandukwalas
house. The homes of two other prominent Muslim bureaucrats in the area were burned
down. TEHELKA stung a rioter, Dhimant Bhatt, who was in the mob that torched these
three homes. Bhatt is an accountant by profession he is the chief accountant and
auditor of MSU but his real vocation is to inflict damage on Muslims.

Besides being a university employee, he also works as a personal assistant to the

current Vadodara BJP MP Jayaben Thakkar. Bhatt revealed that on the night of the
Sabarmati Express incident, a meeting was convened of Vadodaras top BJP, RSS,
VHP, Bajrang Dal and ABVP functionaries. Bhatt, who is also an RSS member, was
present at the meeting, which is where, he says, a strategy of attacking Muslims was
outlined. A plan for providing legal assistance to Hindus who may face legal action after
the riots was also chalked out at the same meeting.

TEHELKA met another Vadodara BJP leader, Deepak Shah, who not only corroborated
what Bhatt told us but also gave the name of the farmhouse where the meeting took
place Narmada Farmhouse. Shah, who is also a member of the Syndicate of the
MSU, also corroborated what Babu Bajrangi had boasted of in Ahmedabad that
saffron organizations used lower-caste Hindus for carrying out anti-Muslim attacks.

Sabarkantha: Nowhere To Run

ASHISH KHETAN

'Lock the door from outside and burn the Muslims inside. This was the chilling war cry
to which the mobs rallied, led by a VHP leader who had vowed to kill 500 Muslims