Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: April 15, 2009
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/169650/Goebbelsian-secularism.html
Punish Gujarat's perjury promoters
The findings by the Special Investigation
Team - appointed by the Supreme Court and headed by Mr RK Raghavan, the former
CBI director - that the activist group Citizens for Justice and Peace fabricated
'evidence' relating to the Gujarat violence of 2002 are revealing. The SIT
has found about two dozen key witnesses were tutored and made to sign template
affidavits, printed out on the same printer. The witnesses gave bogus evidence
about the alleged rape and murder of a pregnant woman, named Kauser Bano,
whose stomach was apparently torn open and foetus pulled out. The SIT has
concluded that this grisly and hideous incident simply did not happen. Another
fictitious case related to witnesses who claimed to have seen bodies dumped
into a well in the Naroda Patiya neighbourhood of Ahmedabad. Again, no corroborative
evidence has been found and the SIT has reason to believe this incident too
never took place. In a third case, the police was falsely accused of aiding
the murderers of a British national of Gujarati origin. Finally, claims that
Mr PC Pandey, Commissioner of Ahmedabad police in 2002, colluded with a mob
in an attack on Gulbarga Society, a largely Muslim residential quarter, were
also found to be untrue. The SIT has established that Mr Pandey was elsewhere
at the time.
While bringing into question the credibility
of Ms Teesta Setalvad, the leading light of the CJP, the SIT revelations also
point to a carefully crafted conspiracy. The myth about the murder of a pregnant
woman, which became the subject of impassioned essays and books, was used
to dehumanise Gujarati Hindus. The mass dumping of bodies in a well and the
role of the police were used to point to a pogrom-like situation, with the
state killing its own people. In targeting Mr Pandey, key functionaries of
the Government were sought to be put on the backfoot. An attempt was made
to prejudice public opinion and subvert investigations into the Godhra carnage
and its aftermath even before these started. All this implies something far
more serious than the genuine errors or even the wild ranting of over-imaginative
vigilantes. Ms Setalvad obviously had a political motive. As has been known
since the Zahira Shaikh case, there is a documented history to her coercing
and bribing of witnesses and, now, of promoting perjury. The charge that the
Gujarat Police protected the killers of a British citizen was particularly
audacious. It inevitably had diplomatic implications, with Ms Setalvad causing
her British interlocutors to believe they were dealing with a rogue Government
in Gandhinagar. To call this treachery would be mild. Ms Setalvad has been
shown up as having an unusually perverted criminal mind.
It is nobody's suggestion that there were
no pre-meditated murders in Gujarat in February-March 2002. From the Godhra
incineration of Hindu pilgrims to the retaliatory and counter-retaliatory
killings that followed, hundreds of lives were lost. Justice may be delayed
but it must be delivered. If individual officials or politicians had a role
to play, they need to be punished. Indeed, the judicial process has already
resulted in convictions. This does mean, however, that entire case histories
can be manufactured and an activist cabal's political prejudices can be allowed
to come in the way of reality. Ms Setalvad needs to be tried for vilifying
and framing innocent people.
