Before Gujarat Riots Raged, Warning Bells Ignored, Petition Alleges

Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images A row of shops burning during the riots in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on March 1, 2002.

NEW DELHIâ€"â€" The Gujarat government ignored numerous warnings from its own police that violent mobs, stoked in part by right-wing Hindu leaders, were forming around the state shortly before the Godhra riots of 2002, a new legal petition claims.

The petition, filed Monday by Zakia Jafri, the widow of Ahsan Jafri, a Muslim lawmaker from the Congress Party who was killed in the riots, draws these conclusions from thousands of pages of police control room records, fax messages and recorded phone calls. These documents and recordings, part of a report prepared by a special Supreme Court-appointed team assigned to investigate the riots, were made available to Mrs. Jafri through a Supreme Court order in February.

Mrs. Jafri’s petition contends that the investigators, known as the Special Investigation Team, ignored documents that showed the Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, senior state ministers and Hindu right-wing leaders, were complicit in fueling the riots. She is asking the court to reject the 541-page report issued by the Special Investigation Team last year, which cleared the chief minister, Narendra Modi, and 61 others in the riots.

“A cold-blooded and clear-cut conspiracy to manipulate the tragic Godhra incident â€" from the moment of the terrible news â€" was planned and executed by Chief Minister Mr. Narendra Modi” and other officials in Gujarat, said a press release issued by Citizens for Justice and Peace, an advocacy group working with Mrs. Jafri.

The Godhra riots of 2002, in which about 1,000 people died, most of them Muslims, continue to be a controversial and divisive event in India, particularly as Mr. Modi appears to be considering a run in the prime minister’s race in 2014. He continues to face allegations that he didn’t do enough to stop the violence, and may have even abetted it. Mr. Modi has denied these accusations.

According to the petition filed Monday, the government ignored reports of impending violence in the aftermath of the burning of a Sabarmati Express train car, which was full of Hindus. The bodies of the victims were brought to Ahmedabad, stoking police fears of violence, the petition says, citing police reports:

12:30 p.m. on the 27th February: An SIB officer through fax no 525 communicated to the headquarters that there were reports that some dead bodies would be brought to Kalupur Hospital station in Ahmedabad city. “So communal violence will occur in the city of Ahmedabad; so take preventive action.”

The state intelligence agency also sent out messages recommending preventive action, according to documents quoted by the petition. Then, mobs began gathering outside the hospitals where the bodies were brought, the documents said. At 4:00 a.m. on Feb. 28, a mob of 3,000 swayamsevaks, or members of the right-wing Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, gathered at the Civil Sola Hospital, for example. Police control room messages warned these mobs were gathering, and turning violent, according to documents quoted by the petition.

By March 3 of 2002, Hindu-Muslim violence in Gujarat had raged for four days, 400 people were dead and some 50 towns were under curfew.

Nitin Patel, the Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman from Gujarat, declined to comment on Mrs. Jafri’s petition. “If someone says something about somebody, it’s not necessary that we should express our views on what is being said,” he told India Ink.

R.K. Raghavan, who headed the Special Investigation Team that filed the closure report on the 2002 Godhra riots, said in a telephone interview, “How can I comment on something being examined by a court I stand by the report.”

“Mrs. Jafri has the right to file a petition,” he said, adding that the matter was before the court and that the magistrate will decide. “I am only responsible to the court,” he said.

Arjun Modhwadia, the Gujarat Congress president, told India Ink in a phone interview, “It’s a pity the S.I.T. chairman tried to suppress many key evidence that were given him. ”

Haresh Pandya and Malavika Vyawahare contributed reporting.