The myth and truth of Godhra - Organiser - Content

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  • The myth and truth of Godhra
    By Arvind Lavakare
  • Since no ?secularist? or ?liberal? or ?objective? person ever challenged the above sets of figures, some questions arise: Who killed 200-odd Hindus so early in those riots? Was it the police or the Hindus themselves? And what made those 40,000 Hindus rush to relief camps? Was it fear of Hindu mob violence, rape, arson and murder?
  • Since no ?secularist? or ?liberal? or ?objective? person ever challenged the above sets of figures, some questions arise: Who killed 200-odd Hindus so early in those riots? Was it the police or the Hindus themselves? And what made those 40,000 Hindus rush to relief camps? Was it fear of Hindu mob violence, rape, arson and murder?
  • Since no ?secularist? or ?liberal? or ?objective? person ever challenged the above sets of figures, some questions arise: Who killed 200-odd Hindus so early in those riots? Was it the police or the Hindus themselves? And what made those 40,000 Hindus rush to relief camps? Was it fear of Hindu mob violence, rape, arson and murder?
  • even as some Hindus in Vadodra, Ahmedabad and a few other parts of Gujarat were provoked into insane killing, arson and loot by the S-6 carnage, the Muslims in that state were hardly the cattle hiding from the slaughter house that they have been made out by the ?secularists? in and outside our national English media. Do you, for instance, recall reading about the mutilation of Mukesh Panchal?s cadaver in any of the English print media? Did you hear a sound byte about it on our TV?
  • This trend was discernible to the objective person four years ago itself. Thus, in its issue of April 28, 2002, The Times of India reporter, Sanjay Pandey, told us that of the 726 people who had been killed by then in the post-Godhra riots, 168 were Hindus. In its issue of June 24, 2002, India Today carried an article saying that the official figure of all people killed in Gujarat in the three months following the S-6 massacre was 800, of which a quarter were Hindus. The Union Home Ministry?s Annual Report 2002-03 said that about a third of the total dead in the Godhra riots were Hindus. It also said that, at one stage, 40,000 Hindus were in riot relief camps.
  • Since no ?secularist? or ?liberal? or ?objective? person ever challenged the above sets of figures, some questions arise: Who killed 200-odd Hindus so early in those riots? Was it the police or the Hindus themselves? And what made those 40,000 Hindus rush to relief camps? Was it fear of Hindu mob violence, rape, arson and murder?
  • Based on the considerable oral, audio and visual evidence obtained from the above interactions, the Justice Tewatia team?s conclusions most relevant to the blindfold on Godhra were as follows:

  • The actual perpetrators were jehadi elements in the predominantly Muslim town of Godhra where

    1. a very high traffic of telephone calls was recorded between Godhra and Pakistan, especially Karachi, before the date of the carnage

    2. an abnormally large number of passports were issued,

    3. there was a large number of persons without ration cards

    4. a large number of unemployed Muslims had mobile phones,

    5. though there is no tradition of being a Muslim pilgrim center and the local Muslims are not affluent, three istema (religious gatherings) have been held and attended by large numbers of foreigners, and

  • Will the criminal conviction of 16 by two separate sessions judges in Ahmedabad remove the blindfold on Godhra that the ?monster media? put on the people of this country?