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| Photo: Cherian Thomas |
A PANEL OF ADVOCATES was constituted to defend the rioters by key members of the Sangh Parivar on the very night of the Sabarmati Express fire
CHETAN SHAH, a VHP member and a leading lawyer of Ahmedabad, was the first to defend the accused in the Naroda Patiya massacre case. In what became a pattern of having Sangh sympathizers represent the government in crucial cases, he was later appointed as public prosecutor in the Gulbarg society case
DILIP TRIVEDI, general secretary of the VHP's Gujarat unit, is the senior pleader in Mehsana district, which was among the worst affected areas during the riots. He has been coordinating riot cases across Gujarat
IN SABARKANTHA, public prosecutor Bharat Bhatt is the VHP's district president. He says he has been doing his best to help the accused
ARVIND PANDYA, the state government's counsel in the Nanavati-Shah Commission, casts aspersions on the judges. According to him, Nanavati is after money and Shah is sympathetic to them
The Sangh was preparing its case for the defence even before the riots, selecting lawyers with the utmost care
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IT WAS not just the carnage that was clinically planned and supervised by the State, it was also the aftermath. Even before the riots began, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad had started chalking out a strategy for providing legal assistance to Hindus who were likely to be accused of rioting and killing. Dhimant Bhatt and Deepak Shah, members of the BJP's Vadodara unit — Bhatt also being the chief accountant of the Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) and Shah a member of the University's executive body — told TEHELKA that key members of the Sangh Parivar met on the night of the Sabarmati Express incident to constitute a panel of advocates to defend the rioters. The fact that the VHP had a good number of advocates — both private lawyers and public prosecutors — among its ranks, made the task easy. Deepak Shah named many Vadodara lawyers, such as Rajendra Trivedi, Neeraj Jain and Tushar Vyas, who were present in that preparatory meeting.
In district Sabarkantha, Narendra Patel and Mohan Patel — both members of the RSS — told TEHELKA that after the riots the RSS had formed a body called Sankalan to provide legal aid to Hindu rioters. Many of the VHP's lawyers, who had their own private practices, became defence counsels for the accused, and public prosecutors who were either members of the VHP or sympathetic to the Sangh extended indirect assistance to the rioters.
The public prosecutors, instead of taking forward the charges against the accused, actually helped them in the case. So, in many places, both the defence and the prosecution were on the same side — on the side of those who looted, raped and killed. What hope then did the Muslim community have of seeing their tormentors convicted? First the police sided with the rioters through shoddy investigations, and now the prosecution too was ranged against the victims.
Chetan Shah, an active VHP member and a leading Ahmedabad lawyer, was the first to represent the accused in the Naroda Patiya massacre. The government later appointed him as the public prosecutor in the Gulbarg society case. TEHELKA met a Gulbarg case accused named Prahlad Raju, who said that while he was on the run, he was being advised by Chetan Shah about when he should surrender before the police.
In Mehsana district, Dilip Trivedi, general secretary of the VHP's Gujarat unit, is also the senior pleader leading a team of about a dozen public prosecutors working under him. Mehsana was among the worst-affected areas during the riots. Two cases in Mehsana in particular — the Deepda Darwaza incident in Visnagar town and the Sardarpura incident — had shaken the conscience of civil society for the number of people killed and also the barbaric manner in which the killings were carried out. Trivedi, whose job was to oppose the bail applications moved by the accused in these two cases, was accused by civil society of helping the accused get bail. After several representations before the Gujarat High Court and the Supreme Court by the victims, Trivedi was removed from representing them in riot cases. TEHELKA went to see Trivedi at his office within the Mehsana court premises on June 15, 2007.
TRIVEDI REVEALED that in his capacity as the VHP's general secretary, he had coordinated all the riot cases in Gujarat. While the reporter was sitting in Trivedi's chamber, two people walked in to discuss a riot-related case in which Hindus were accused. The men needed Trivedi's help to engage a lawyer who could represent the accused. Trivedi called up a few lawyers and tried to find his visitors a suitable lawyer. After the two men left his office, Trivedi said that the defence lawyer who was handling their case had fallen ill, and the responsibility of finding a new defence lawyer had again fallen upon him. He grumbled about having to manage everything — from coordinating with government lawyers and defence advocates to talking to cops who were reinvestigating the riot cases. He further said that out of a total of 74 riot-related cases in Mehsana, only two had resulted in conviction.
"In one case, I got the acquittal after I made an appeal in the Sessions Court… In the second case, the appeal has been made before the High Court but everyone is out on bail... the conviction was wrong." He then went on to narrate the worst cases of the killing and looting of Muslims that happened in Mehsana post-Godhra. He said one such case — the Sardarpura case — had been stayed by the Supreme Court, but since the accused were out on bail, he was not worried. He then went on to explain how after the accused in the Sardarpura riot case were granted bail by the Mehsana court, the victims had made such a big noise, that The Times Of India had carried a front-page story accusing him of playing a partisan role in riot-related cases.
A gleeful Trivedi boasted that even though the allegations against him were true, nothing could be proved "on paper". Everybody knew, he said, that after the riots, he had camped in every district holding meetings with government prosecutors, his own workers and police officers.
In Sabarkantha, TEHELKA met public prosecutor Bharat Bhatt, who also happens to be the VHP'S district president. Bhatt said he had been doing his best to help the accused. This public prosecutor has in fact turned broker — instead of fighting for justice, he is pushing for out-of-court settlements.
The state counsel before the Nanavati-Shah Commission believes it's better to cripple Muslims than to kill them
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| Arvind Pandya |
THE COUNTRY always believed that Chief Minister Narendra Modi was the guardian deity of the murderous hordes let loose across Gujarat following the Godhra carnage. This belief had acquired the force of truth not only due to Modi's own pronouncements and to those of other members of his party, but also because of an across-the-spectrum indictment of the Modi regime by the media, human rights groups and independent factfinding teams. The Nanavati-Shah Commission, the official probe into the carnage, has been recording statements for a few years now. But in a serious indictment, Arvind Pandya, the Gujarat government's counsel, reveals that he's trying to manage the proceedings.
Pandya, the special public prosecutor appointed by the Modi government to defend it before the Nanavati-Shah Commission, too believes, like everybody else, that had it not been for Modi the Hindus could not have taken their "revenge" for the Godhra killings. Pandya is privy not only to privileged state information, he is also aware of Modi's own thoughts on the matter. Leading a battery of lawyers for the past five years to absolve Modi and his government of charges of sponsoring and backing the 2002 pogrom, Pandya told TEHELKA that during the riots Modi had given oral instructions to the police to "be with Hindus".
"A Hindu-based government was there when this incident took place, so the people were ready and the state was also ready… this was a happy coincidence," Pandya said. This reporter met Pandya twice – on June 6 and on June 8. On both occasions, Pandya emphasised that had there been a non-BJP government in power in 2002, the riots would never have happened. He said that Modi was so upset after the Godhra carnage that he would himself had dropped bombs on Juhapura — a Muslim neigbourhood in Ahmedabad — but his position as chief minister constrained him. Pandya said he believed that the mass killing of Muslims in Gujarat should be celebrated every year as "victory day". He said that crippling Muslims was better than killing them, as that would not only invite lesser punishment but a crippled Muslim would also serve as a living advertisement of what Hindus were capable of. Inflicting economic loss on Muslims was as important as killing them, Pandya asserted.
This isn't all. Even as he was defending the government before the Commission, Pandya was also simultaneously arguing the cases of the riot accused. He told TEHELKA that in many cases, the judges had given him their full cooperation and guidance.
"Every judge was calling me in his chamber and showing full sympathy for me… giving full cooperation to me, but keeping some distance… the judges were also guiding me as and when required… how to put up a case and on which date… because basically they are Hindus… so help from each and every class of people came forth… the people remained united and their only motive was the survival of Hinduism," said the lawyer.
According to Pandya, it's not just the judiciary in Gujarat that has been complicit in the victimisation and persecution of Muslims. Pandya claimed even the Nanavati-Shah Commission has been compromised. He says KG Shah, who heads the Commission along with Nanavati, is sympathetic to the BJP. Pandya was also full of derision for Nanavati, who he said was only interested in money. What follows is a part of the conversation that TEHELKA had with Pandya at his residence in Ahmedabad on June 8, 2007. Click here
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