I/II. ToI Edit http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Follow-it-up/articleshow/8072415.cms
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Follow-it-up/articleshow/8072415.cms>Follow it upApr 25, 2011, 12.00am IST Two crucial aspects of the probe into the 2002 Gujarat riots<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=2002%20Gujarat%20riots> have come out in the open. One is the testimony of senior police officer Sanjiv Bhatt <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Sanjiv%20Bhatt>alleging that on the eve of the VHP-organised bandh and post-Godhra carnage, chief minister Narendra Modi<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Narendra-Modi> told top police officers at a meeting to let Hindus vent their anger. An equally significant development, reported first in this newspaper, is the surfacing of police records which were claimed to have been destroyed in the routine course. Though it is coming after nine years, Bhatt's revelation of Modi's alleged instruction to the police bears scrutiny because it ties in with what was testified earlier by former state intelligence chief R B Sreekumar and assassinated BJP leader and former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Haren%20Pandya>. If anything, Bhatt's allegation has greater value as evidence because, unlike Sreekumar and Pandya, he claims to have been actually present at the meeting addressed by Modi. But then, if he is reduced to depending on his driver's word to bear out his testimony in the face of denials from other officers present in the meeting, it is because of Bhatt's own failure to create a contemporaneous record which would have been hard to rebut. There is a lesson in this for all conscientious officials seeking to blow the whistle on the misdeeds of their seniors. In a bid to make up for this gap in evidence, Bhatt was forced to file an affidavit at this stage before the Supreme Court. It was not only to place his testimony on record but also to complain against the alleged cover-up by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the conspiracy angle. Bhatt's detailed account of the alleged cover-up by the SIT needs to be taken seriously by the Supreme Court. For, it is the latest in a series of charges made against this special mechanism set up under former CBI director R K Raghavan with a team consisting of serving Gujarat police officers and retired counterparts from outside the state. The SIT is embroiled in such an unsavoury controversy even after the apex court's direction at the last hearing in March to review its clean chit to Modi as its inferences did not tally with its findings. In this season of heightened consciousness about probity in public life, it should be borne in mind that any cover-up of the Gujarat carnage would constitute an egregious form of corruption. II. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Now-IAS-officer-claims-Modi-s-office-instructed-against--proactive-measures-/780861/ <http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Now-IAS-officer-claims-Modi-s-office-instructed-against--proactive-measures-/780861/> Now IAS officer claims Modi’s office instructed against ‘proactive measures’ *Hiral Dave* Posted online: Mon Apr 25 2011, 08:58 hrs *Rajkot : *Suspended IAS officer Pradeep Sharma has written to R K Raghavan, who heads the Supreme Court-appointed SIT probing the 2002 riots, claiming that Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s office had asked him during the riots to ask his brother and IPS officer Kuldeep Sharma to “abstain from taking any proactive measures in favour of minorities”. Kuldeep was IGP of Ahmedabad range at that time. Pradeep, who is currently lodged in a Bhuj jail in connection with a post-earthquake rehabilitation land scam, is the second civil servant after DIG Sanjiv Bhatt to allege that the CM or his office gave specific instructions to allow Hindus to vent their anger following the Godhra train carnage. Pradeep has requested the SIT to allow him to depose before it to give the exact date, time and nature of instructions that he claimed to have received from the CMO. In his letter dated April 11, 2011, a copy of which is with The Indian Express, referring to the riots period, when he was posted as the municipal commissioner of Jamnagar, the IAS officer said that he “received a phone call from the Chief Minister’s office stating that I should ask my brother, K N Sharma, the then IGP Ahmedabad Range, that he should abstain from taking proactive measures in favour of the minorities”. Kuldeep was recently deputed to the Police Research and Development Department in New Delhi after he won a case in the Central Administration Tribunal against the state government for degrading his annual confidential report (ACR). Earlier, Kuldeep was named in an FIR registered by the CID (Crime) in connection with a 26-year-old encounter case, which was quashed by the Gujarat High Court. The CID (Crime) has also registered four cases against Pradeep in alleged land scams after the 2001 earthquake. Pradeep had alleged that the cases were registered by the government as the two brothers refused to follow their instructions. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
