DOCUMENTATION:
Extract from written legal submissions submitted to 11th
Metro Court Judge BJ Ganatra on dt.18.9.2013
CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST MODI (SUMMARY)
Introduction:-
The Zakia
Jafri (supported by Citizens for Justice & Peace) Criminal Complaint
against Narendra Modi and 59 Others was ordered to be investigated by the
Supreme Court. Zakia Jafri & CJP have been attempting to get serious
criminal charges registered and investigated since 8.6.2006. The Special Investigation team (SIT)
originally asked to further investigate None Major Trials was assigned the task
(27.4.2009). An Amicus Curiae was also appointed to assist the Court. The SIT
in its reports from 2010 arrived at the conclusion that while several of the
allegations were found to be correct , there was not sufficient material to
prosecute the accused.
In stark
contrast, the Amicus Curiae senior advocate Raju Ramachandran looking at the
same evidence collected by the SIT, came to a contrary conclusion, stating
clearly that there was evidence enough to prosecute Narendra Modi. Faced with
this dilemma of two contrary assessments, the Supreme Court remanded the matter
to a lower Court directing SIT to file its Final Report there. The SC
specifically directed that if the SIT filed a closure report, the Complainants
were fully within their legal rights to file a Protest petition and access all
Investigation papers/documents. (This is a right under Indian law but was
specifically outlined by the Supreme Court in its final judgement dated
12.9.2011).
Predictably,
the SIT filed a closure report on 8.2.2012 and remained adamant against making
Investigation papers available to the Complainants in contempt o the Supreme
Court order. The Magistrate granted the Complainant her right to the
Investigation Papers on 10.4.2012 but it took Zakia Jafri & CJP another
year to access all the Investigation reports of the SIT submitted to the
Supreme Court. The SC directed this on 7.2.2013 after which the Protest
Petition was filed on 15.4.2013. From June 24-August 29, 2013 rigorous
arguments in support of the Zakia Jafri Protest Petition were made before Judge
Ganatra, 11th Metropolitan Magistrate, Ahmedabad. The final day of arguments on
behalf of the Complainant will be on 18.9.2013. Thereafter the Judgement of the
Magistrate will be awaited.
Narendra Modi faces Fifteen Serious Charges
of :-
Ø 1. Willfully
Ignoring Messages from State
Intelligence about the Violent Repercussions of the RSS-VHP called
‘Mahayajna’
before the tragic Godhra incident on 27.2.2002 and deliberately not
initiating precautionary measures that are imperative under Standard
Operational
Procedure; messages from 7.2.2002 to 25.2.2002, including specific ones
that
stated that batches of 2,800 and 1,900 kar sevaks had left for
Faizabad-Ayodhya
and had been behaving provocatively and aggressively against minorities
on the
way. As cabinet minister for home and chief minister, he is directly
responsible MOS Home Gordhan Zadaphiya is a constant Co-Conspirator.
Ø 2. Deliberately concealing knowledge of the
provocative, anti-Muslim sloganeering by kar sevaks at the Godhra station when
the Sabarmati Express reached five hours late on 27.2.2002, which information
had been sent to him directly by DM/Collector Jayanti Ravi and willfully
failing to take stern action and allowing violent incidents to escalate after
the train left Godhra by about 1.15 p.m. especially at Vadodara station where a
Muslim was attacked and killed and at Anand where the train stopped hereafter
ensuring that the state allowed a hate-filled and threatening atmosphere
against Muslims build right up to Ahmedabad where the train finally reached
around 4 p.m. and where bloodthirsty slogans were being shouted. FIRs in 19
brutal incidents against Muslims are recorded on 27.2.2002 in Ahmedabad itself.
Curfew was not imposed despite these incidents resulting in deaths breaking
out.
Ø 3. Conspiring
with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to
plot and allow reprisal killings all over Gujarat. The first phone call
that
Modi makes after DM Ravi’s fax reaches him is, not to appeal for peace
and
calm, but phone secretary VHP, Gujarat, Dr Jaideep Patel and direct him
to Godhra. The Conspiracy between Modi and the VHP is hatched and
unfurled to
cynically ensure state-wide reprisal killings. Phone call records show
these
phone calls between PA to Modi AP Patel and Jaideep Patel immediately
after the
chief minister receives news of the Godhra tragedy. Phone call records
made
available by Rahul Sharma (IPS, Gujarat) also show that Powerful Accused
were
in touch with the chief minister’s office (CMO) and the landline numbers
of the
chief minister.
Ø 4. Brazenly supporting the Bandh call called by
the VHP and allowing the streets and public spaces of Gujarat to be used for
mass attacks and violence. By 12 noon on 27.2.2002, state intelligence and the
police were aware of the Bandh call ; the bandh was uses by the police
machinery to clear the streets of ordinary citizens so that aggressive mobs
could target minority populations and their establishments.
Ø 5.
Cynically, and illegally allowed
Post Mortems Illegally out in the Open at the Railway Yard, Godhra where
the
burnt and mutilated corpses were laid in full view of an aggressive and
irate
crowd of RSS and VHP men and women, who were gathered there in violation
of Curfew Orders @ Godhra. Deliberately allowing photographs of the
burnt corpses
to be taken and widely circulated by the RSS-VHP and media in general,
despite
it being prevented under law;
Ø 6. Personally
instigating individual RSS-VHP men
and women at the railway yard at Godhra assuring them that enough time
will be allowed by the Modi-led government and administration to extract
a revenge for
Godhra.
Ø 7. Directing that the unidentified bodies of
Godhra train victims should be handed over to Jaideep Patel, a non-governmental
person, that too belonging to a supremacist and communal VHP to be brought to
Ahmedabad where aggressive funeral processions in full public view were
allowed. Modi directed this at a meeting at the Collectorate in the evening of
27.2.2002 before he returned to Gandhinagar. Jaideep Patel was allowed to be
present at an official meeting at the Collectorate. Jaideep Patel is a
co-conspirator and also facing trial for mass crimes in the ongoing Naroda Gaam
case. Modi is specifically guilty of allowing the escalation of violence from
Godhra to other parts of Gujarat and taking decisions contrary to law.
Ø 8. Specifically instructing his top policemen
and administrators not to act evenhandedly in the days to follow and “allow
Hindus to vent their anger.” Two senior bureaucrats present at the meeting have
stated that cabinet ministers were present at a meeting that went on well past midnight. Haren Pandya, a minister in Modi’s cabinet in 2002 had given evidence
of this to the Concerned Citizen’s Tribunal headed by Justice Krishna Iyer and
PB Sawant in 2002 itself. Later in 2009 a serving officer from the state
intelligence, Sanjiv Bhatt also gave the same evidence before the SIT and the
Supreme Court.
Ø 9. Preventing the Imposition of Curfew. Curfew
was deliberately not imposed at Ahmedabad while over 3,000 RSS workers were
allowed to gather at the Sola Civil Hospital where Jaideep Patel arrived with
the bodies of the Godhra victims at about 4 a.m. The crowd was aggressive and
violent as proved from the police control room records. No steps were taken to
disperse the crowd that attacked the hospital staff and doctors, a High Court
judge, Violent funeral processions were allowed to wind through the streets of
Ahmedabad for several hours at two locations; worst Acharya Giriraj Kishore was
given police escort to come and further provoke the aggressive mob; the
cremations took place only in the evening and attacks on Naroda Patiya, Naroda
Gaam and Gulberg Society where over 200 persons were massacred (and rapes
allowed) in broad daylight on the same day, 28.2.2002, while violent and
aggressive funeral processions were willfully allowed by Modi and the police
and administration.
Ø 10. Making a pretence of verbally calling in the
Army on the late evening of 28.2.2002 but not actually allowing its deployment
in Ahmedabad, Godhra and Bhavnagar and Varodara until 2.3.2002 and 3.3.2002.
Worse badly affected districts like Mehsana, Panchmahals, Dahod, Anand, Kheda
were not given ant Army or Paramilitary at all.
Ø 11. Fourteen
out of Gujarat’s 25 districts were
allowed to burn as Ministers were specifically deployed by Modi to
interfere
with Police functioning and sit in the State Control Room and Ahmedabad
City Control Room; in Eleven Districts where Violence was controlled,
the Police
Officers in Charge were given Punitive Transfers to send a Political
Message.
Modi heads the Home department that bends the Police Bureaucracy and
Police to
his Will.
Ø 12. Modi
allowed violence to continue unabated
until early May 2002 when KPS Gill was sent by PM Vajpayee to the state;
the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), April and July 2002 and
Central
Election Commission (CEC) were misled about the spread and intensity of
violence. This was willful subversion of the justice system.
Ø 13. Partisan
prosecutors belonging to the RSS-VHP
were appointed to ensure that cases were killed in their infancy; bail
was easily granted to powerful accused until the Supreme Court stepped
in, in 2003
and 2004. Two trials, the Best Bakery trial and the Bilkees Bano cases
were
transferred out of the state.
Ø 14. Hate
Speech was indulged in by Modi himself,
on 27.2.2002 and right until the infamous Becharaji speech made top set
off his election campaign on 9.9.2002 and also cynically permitted by
the Home
Department under him to spread poison and incite violence against
Muslims and
Christians. The State Intelligence under ADGP-Int RB Sreekumar had
specifically
recommended prosecution of the VHP for a series of incendiary pamphlets
but
this was ignored. SP Bhavnagar, Rahul Sharma too had recommended the
prosecution of Sandesh, the Gujarati mainstream newspaper for publishing
false
and provocative photographs and reports. Both the NHRC and Editor’s
Guild had
also strongly recommended prosecution of those guilty of hate speech.
Modi had,
instead sent congratulatory letters to those newspapers who had spread
lies and
venom. RB Sreekumar, Rahul Sharma and Sanjiv Bhatt are among the
officers
persecuted by the Gujarat government under Modi (home minister).
Ø 15. Modi is guilty of ordering the Destruction of
Crucial documents including Wireless Intercepted Messages, Vehicle logs, Police
Control Room records and others on 30.3.2008, four days after the Supreme Court
appoints the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on 26.3.2008. He has headed the
Home ministry portfolio since that date.
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