A recent expose by Tehelka magazine in India has highlighted the savage butchery undertaken by Hindu extremists in the 2002 Gujarat riots with the complicity of the Chief Minister of the state and other officials. They reported late Thursday that their reporter, using hidden cameras, had spoken to some of the main rioters. The men told the reporter that Gujarat's chief minister, Narendra Modi, had encouraged them to massacre Muslims and prevented police from stopping the killings. Modi, who remains the state's chief minister — a post equivalent to a U.S. governor — is a leading member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In a press release issued on Thursday, Tehelka magazine mentioned that fresh evidence about the 2002 Gujarat carnage had confirmed that the killings of Muslims in the state was strategised and executed by top functionaries of the RSS, VHP and the Bajrang Dal, with the knowledge and sanction of the state authorities and Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
“A six-month Tehelka investigation brings forward irrefutable evidence of many horrific incidents that have remained contested in the last five years,” Tehelka said in the release.
Tehelka said that it had a first hand account from “the men who conducted” the brutal murder of Congress MP Ehsan Jafri by hacking him. Also on record are confessions of rape, besides graphic details about incidents including the one in Naroda Patiya where dozens of Muslims hiding in a pit were doused with kerosene and burnt alive, the statement said.
The video recordings show Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi as saying the killing of the Hindus on the train made him feel like killing Muslims and "hacking them apart."
"I am proud of it. If I get another chance, I will kill even more," he is reported to have said.
Bajrangi, who was arrested and then quickly released on bail for his alleged role in the rioting, was also quoted as saying Modi manipulated the legal system to protect the rioters.
"He kept on changing judges ... he set it up so as to ensure my release, otherwise I wouldn't have been out yet."
A leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Rajendra Vyas, reportedly told Tehelka: "As chief minister, Narendra bhai (Modi) couldn't say kill all the Muslims. I could say it publicly because I was from the VHP."
"He gave us a free run to do whatever we wanted to since we were already fed up of the Muslims ... the police was with us."
A Must read - the report: The Truth, Gujarat 2002 - In the words of the men who did it
See the spycam videos
In a press release issued on Thursday, Tehelka magazine mentioned that fresh evidence about the 2002 Gujarat carnage had confirmed that the killings of Muslims in the state was strategised and executed by top functionaries of the RSS, VHP and the Bajrang Dal, with the knowledge and sanction of the state authorities and Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
“A six-month Tehelka investigation brings forward irrefutable evidence of many horrific incidents that have remained contested in the last five years,” Tehelka said in the release.
Tehelka said that it had a first hand account from “the men who conducted” the brutal murder of Congress MP Ehsan Jafri by hacking him. Also on record are confessions of rape, besides graphic details about incidents including the one in Naroda Patiya where dozens of Muslims hiding in a pit were doused with kerosene and burnt alive, the statement said.
The video recordings show Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi as saying the killing of the Hindus on the train made him feel like killing Muslims and "hacking them apart."
"I am proud of it. If I get another chance, I will kill even more," he is reported to have said.
Bajrangi, who was arrested and then quickly released on bail for his alleged role in the rioting, was also quoted as saying Modi manipulated the legal system to protect the rioters.
"He kept on changing judges ... he set it up so as to ensure my release, otherwise I wouldn't have been out yet."
A leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Rajendra Vyas, reportedly told Tehelka: "As chief minister, Narendra bhai (Modi) couldn't say kill all the Muslims. I could say it publicly because I was from the VHP."
"He gave us a free run to do whatever we wanted to since we were already fed up of the Muslims ... the police was with us."
A Must read - the report: The Truth, Gujarat 2002 - In the words of the men who did it
See the spycam videos
Comments
TEHELKA: At the pit, was oil… Those people had gathered there…
Bajrangi: It was a huge pit… You could enter it from one side but you couldn’t climb out at the other end… They were all there together… They started clinging to each other… Even while they were dying, they told each other, you die too, what are you going to be saved for, you die too… so the number of deaths increased.
TEHELKA: Then people poured oil in…
Bajrangi: Oil and burning tyres…
TEHELKA: Where did the oil come from?
Bajrangi: Oh that… We had lots of material with us… we filled lots of jerrycans in advance… From the petrol pump, the night before… Petrol pump owners gave us petrol and diesel for free…
TMQ of Surah Burooj ayahs 4-10:
4. Cursed were the people of the ditch
5. Fire supplied (abundantly) with fuel,
6. When they sat by it (fire),
7. And they witnessed what they were doing against the believers (i.e. burning them).
8. They had nothing against them, except that they believed in Allâh, the All-Mighty, Worthy of all Praise!
9. Who, to Whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth! And Allâh is Witness over everything.
10. Verily, those who put into trial the believing men and believing women (by torturing them and burning them), and then do not turn in repentance, (to Allâh), will have the torment of Hell, and they will have the punishment of the burning Fire.