1. The Congress Union Minister of State for Home, Shriprakash Jaiswal, in Parliament on 11 May 2005, said 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed in the riots. This is hardly consistent with a Muslim genocide.

2. The entire police force of 70,000 was deployed in Gujarat on 27 February itself in apprehension of riots. (The Hindustan Times Feb 28, 2002). Gujarat police fired more than 4,000 rounds in the first three days alone. Altogether the police arrested more than 27,000 people.
National Minorities Commission Chairman John Joseph noted, “As on April 6, 126 persons were killed in police firing, of which 77 were Hindus.” (The Telegraph, April 21, 2002.). This does not tally with the accusation of a deliberately inactive police force.

3. “Shoot-at-sight” orders had been given in Godhra on February 27 itself. (Times Of India, Feb 27, 2002). 827 preventive arrests were made on the evening of February 27 itself, on Chief Minister Narendra Modi”s order. The State Government deployed the Rapid Action Force in Ahmedabad and other sensitive areas and the Centre sent in CRPF personnel, on February 27 itself even before a single riot had taken place. (The Indian Express, Feb 28, 2002)

4. Narendra Modi, frantically called the Army units to Ahmedabad on February 28th (The Hindu, March 1, 2002). Army units started arriving in Ahmedabad on the night of February 28th. On 1st and 2nd March 2002, riots took place even in places where the Indian Army was present, i.e. Ahmedabad and Vadodara, and close to 100 people each were killed, despite the presence of the Indian Army.

5. Only 2 deaths were reported on 3rd March in the entire state, and the main violence ended on 3rd March 2002. After 3rd March 2002, riots took place almost entirely in those places where the Army was posted.
Subsequently there were 157 riots and all of them were started by Muslim groups (India Today, June 24, 2002).

6. As early as 5 March 2002, out of the 98 relief / refugee camps set up in the state, 85 were for the Muslims and 13 were for the Hindus. As on 17 March 2002, as per The Times of India, 10,000 Hindus were rendered homeless in Ahmedabad alone. As on 25 April 2002, out of the 1 lakh 40 thousand refugees, some 1 lakh were Muslims and 40 thousand were Hindus.
Again this is not consistent with the unilateral Muslim sufferings that have been portrayed.

7. India Today weekly in its issue dated 20 May 2002 clearly admits that, far from being anti-Muslim, the Gujarat police did not act speedily against Muslim fanatics and rioters, for fear of being called anti-Muslim by the biased and partisan media

As for the issue of deployment of army, this is what India Today reported on its 18 March 2002 issue.

FEB 27, 2002

8.03 AM: Incident at Godhra claims lives of 57 kar sevaks.
8.30 AM: Modi is informed of the carnage.
4.30 PM: Modi gives shoot-at-sight orders to the police.
10.30 PM: CM orders curfew in sensitive places and pre-emptive arrests.

FEB 28, 2002

8.00 AM: Special control room set up in CM”s house.
12.00 PM: Modi informally contacts Centre for calling in army.
4.00 PM: Modi requests army deployment following consultations with Advani.
7.00 PM: The Gujarat Government”s formal request for army deployment is received in Delhi.
11.30 PM: Airlifting of troops begins

MARCH 1, 2002

2.30 AM: A brigade reaches Ahmedabad.
9.00 AM: Discussions between representatives of the army and the state take place, followed by troop flag march in Ahmedabad.”

That the retaliation of the Godhra train carnage was overwhelming for the available resources at his disposal was obvious, but to blame the Chief Minister or his administration for that would be as unjustified as to blame the Prime Minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh, for the recent obvious sloppiness and intelligence failure that one saw during the recent Mumbai terrorist attack of Nov 2008. Yet that has been and is still being done in such vigor that even most Hindus feel that it is the truth and are probably shameful about Mr. Narendra Modi.

Contrast this with the largest riot that happened in recent times, the anti Sikh riot in Delhi in 1984, in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi”s assassination. In that incidence, officially 3,000 Sikhs were killed and may be 10,000 in actual number. Not a single Congressman was killed, not even one person was killed in police firing, and not even a single government relief camp was organized for the Sikhs in 1984.

Those who vilify Modi as a representative of Hindutva politicis of the BJP or RSS kind, fail to remember that Hindu – Muslim riots happened even before the RSS was founded in 1925 or the BJP in 1980. Hindus, known for their tolerance and faith in religious pluralism, are never known to be in conflict anywhere else in the world, but the same cannot be said of the followers of the Muslim religion, involved in religious (against Hindus, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, etc) and sectarian (Shia, Sunnis etc.)

—Fearing her arrest, Mumbai based controversial NGO operator Teesta Setalvad has filed anticipatory bail plea in Gujarat’s Godhra court to save herself from arrest.

The application for the anticipatory bail was filed by Teesta’s counsel A A Hasan in a Godhra court on Thursday—.

http://deshgujarat.com/2011/01/31/teestas-bail-plea-hearing-on-10-february-in-godhra-court/

—Teesta is likely to be arrested in connection with exhumation of bodies of riot victims in Lunawada. The Pandharwada massacre took place during the 2002. The grave was dug up in December 2005 without legal procedure—-.

The Supreme Court on Thursday came down heavily on social activist Teesta Setalvad for raising the issue of post-Godhra riots of Gujarat with foreign organisations saying that it can take care of the cases and no interference is required from overseas human rights groups. “We don’t appreciate that other organisations interfere in our functioning. We can take care of (them) ourselves and cannot get guided by others. It’s a direct interference in our functioning. We don’t appreciate it,” a special bench headed by Justice D K Jain said.

The court was anguished that the NGO, centre for Justice and Peace (CJP), headed by Setalvad approached Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights raising the issue of protection of witnesses in riots cases.

Khushwant writes: ” In 1984, when Hindu mobs went on a rampage against Sikhs in Delhi…”

That’s wrong, he should use the word Congress here. The only people who tried to save Sikh lives were RSS. Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee put his own life in danger in an attempt to save few Sikhs in one place.

Other things to be mentioned here are : Non of those who attacked the Sikhs were killed or even seriously hurt, while in Godhra episode a considerable number of Hindus were brutally killed too. And unlike 1984 where no cop was killed or even injured, in Godhra episode policemen did die while trying to save people.

* Original interview published in “The Week” (India)Apr 6, 2003 titled, “The menace of fascism” by Sachidananda Murthy.