Godhra: 'Corrupt officers helped government, riot suspects': India Today

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Godhra: 'Corrupt officers helped government, riot suspects'

POORNIMA JOSHI | New Delhi, August 7, 2011 | 09:43

A file photo of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Over 682 pages of annexures submitted by the Gujarat police officer Sanjiv Bhatt to the Supreme Court reveal how the state has closed ranks to shield and help the accused in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots. Officers in the law and home department of Gujarat helped riot suspects draft their affidavits and petitions while, at the same time, framing the same documents on behalf of the government meant to prosecute the same accused. The case in point, mentioned in great detail by Bhatt, is that of Bipin Ambalal Patel, who was allegedly part of a rioting mob that killed 69 Muslims in what is now infamously known as the Gulberg Society massacre case. Ehsan Jafri, an ageing former Congress MP, was brutally murdered by this mob despite pleading with them on behalf of his residential society. Patel is supposed to be prosecuted by the Gujarat state. But its advocate general Tushar Mehta drafted a petition on behalf of the accused, which was filed as criminal miscellaneous petition no. 8187-88 of 2010 in writ petition criminal number 37-52 of 2002. He subsequently drafted an affidavit on Patel's behalf to be filed before the Supreme Court and sent a copy of it to G.C. Murmu, principal secretary to chief minister Narendra Modi. The revelation comes through annexure P-40 in an email sent from tusharmehta99@ yahoo.co.in to gcm1@rediffmail. com. In effect, what this means is that the state's advocate general was drafting a petition on behalf of an accused in a case of murder and rioting. And the CM's principal secretary was well aware of this misdemeanour. Mehta has since filed a police complaint against Bhatt for hacking into his emails, an inadvertent admission of the fact that the mails submitted by Bhatt to the apex court were, in fact, written by him.

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Godhra: 'Corrupt officers helped government, riot suspects': India Today

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/articlePrint.jsp?aid=147328

While he was framing the defence for the accused, Mehta also drafted an affidavit to be filed by the state government in response to Patel's petition. Mehta was, at least informally, working for both sides in the matter before the Supreme Court. And the government, particularly the CM's office, was aware of how the system was being subverted. RSS ideologue S. Gurumurthy, who told Mail Today earlier this week that he neither wrote nor received any of the emails quoted by Bhatt in his affidavit, emerges as the master strategist for the BJP as well as the Gujarat government's chief legal adviser. Mehta seemed to be informally reporting to Gurumurthy. Based on the information supplied to him through Mehta and Murmu, Gurumurthy was framing the BJP's political strategy as well as defence for various riot accused and police officers in the Sohrabuddin and Ishrat Jehan encounter cases. Sample Gurumurthy's advisory sent to lawyers Ram Jethmalani, Mahesh Jethmalani, Pranav Badheka and the then Gujarat home minister and now accused in the Sohrabuddin encounter Amit Shah. "We should proceed on the lines Ram is thinking, namely that the order must be recalled and the complaint itself must be quashed I further said that since the SIT would give the report by April according to Raghavan, we cannot back out of our position about the order of 27/ 4 at the hearing on 5/ 6/ 7 April If the entire matter is heard as we think, it may be that the court may decide the issue, most probably in our favour given the conviction levels of all of us As part of the political strategy, the BJP must submit the memorandum which I had drafted and sent to all for their inputs. This will help put many on the defensive," Gurumurthy said in the email sent April 18, 2010, at 4.53 pm. Another email exchange between powerful media baron N. Ram of The Hindu and Gurumurthy. Both Ram and Gurumurthy have denied this exchange. "I have no such recollection," Ram said when this correspondent spoke to him August 4. Ram did not respond to messages and emails requesting his response on Saturday. The email was sent from Gurumurthy to Ram on February 17, 2010 on two accounts nram@ thehindu. co. in and nram. thehindu@ gmail. com. the email, Gurumurthy said: "This refers to our telephonic talk after Cho spoke to you and to me. Here is the note, I would like you too to go through it that you understand the issues before you talk to the person concerned." The email comes with a long attachment which contains references to how the NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace is trying to put pressure on the SIT do what the central government wants in the Gujarat riots investigations. The annexures paint a grim picture of the goings-on in Gujarat. The only hope for justice when the state has aligned with the perpetrators of atrocities on the Muslims rests with the apex court.

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