The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) today said the sting operation by Tehelka has confirmed that the 2002 post Godhra riots in Gujarat were State-sponsored, and added that the footage should be used as evidence in the case.
New Delhi, Oct 26 : The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) today said the sting operation by Tehelka has confirmed that the 2002 post Godhra riots in Gujarat were State-sponsored, and added that the footage should be used as evidence in the case.
A day after weekly newsmagazine Tehelka aired a sting operation, claiming that the 2002 massacre of Muslims in Gujarat were carried out in full knowledge of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the CPM said the "shocking and graphic" details of the massacre of the minority community have been brought out by the perpetrators themselves in the footage.
"Tehelka tapes should be taken as prime facie evidence and the Supreme Court and the Central Government should move expeditiously to see that all those guilty are brought to justice. The Central Government and the law enforcement agencies have a special responsibility in this regard," the party said in a statement here.
"It has confirmed what is well known that the 2002 violence in Gujarat was a State-sponsored one. The Chief Minister Modi and his government were fully responsible for this gross violation of human rights and subversion of the Constitution," it added.
Meanwhile, Congress leader and Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said that the expose has proved that "Modi and democracy are antithetical to each other."
Coming down heavily on Modi, he said the Congress has maintained that the BJP leader in Gujarat has systematically subverted the rule of law.
"He considers himself above the party and above the State. In Modi's Gujarat, Modi is not accountable to anybody," Sibal said in a statement issued from Paris.
He went on to say that the issue in Gujarat is not about justice to one community or another, but it s about the "denial of the Right to Life."
"It is time that the cause of justice is vindicated and what Narendra Modi has done in Gujarat for last five years placed before the court of the people. It is now for them to judge whether they want a Gujarat with Modi or a Gujarat without him," Sibal added.
Yesterday, Tehelka claimed that its investigation into 2002 post Godhra riots in Gujarat found that the massacre of Muslims were carried out in full knowledge and sanction of the Gujarat Chief Minister.
The six-month long "investigation brings confirmation that the Gujarat murder of Muslims was not a spontaneous swell of anger, but a planned genocide strategised and executed by top functionaries of the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the state authorities, with the knowledge and sanction of Chief Minister Narendra Modi," Tehelka claimed.
The magazine quoted a BJP MLA, who said that he was present at the meeting in which Modi gave them "three days' time to do whatever they wanted."
"He had given us three days time...to do whatever we could. He said he would not give us time after that...He said this openly," the news magazine quoted the MLA, as saying.
After three days "he (Modi) asked us to stop and everything came to a halt," Haresh Bhatt, the then national co-coordinator of the Bajrang Dal was quoted, as saying.
"It appears that bombs were manufactured in factories owned by senior Bajrang Dal and VHP activists. Arms were smuggled from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab, and then distributed to execution squads led by MLAs and senior members of the Sangh Parivar. Consignments of arms were not just smuggled in once, but 'there were tens and tens of them," Tehelka said in a press statement.
The news magazine also claims that elaborate legal subversion was done to save those accused for their role in the genocide. To help the foot soldiers, who actually raped, killed and looted, the strategists had constituted a panel of lawyers sympathetic to Hindu cause.
"To get me out on bail, Narendrabhai changed judges thrice," Tehelka quoted Babu Bajrangi, as saying.
ANI