The Gujarat Riots case is back in the news again after a case was filed against jailed former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, retired DGP RB Sreekumar, and ‘activist’ Teesta Setalvad for conspiring to fabricate testimony to influence the proceedings of the case. The Ahmedabad Crime Branch has sought Bhatt’s remand while Gujarat ATS has already arrested Teesta Setalvad for further enquiry.
The Supreme Court on June 24, also dismissed a plea filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the clean chit given to the PM Narendra Modi by SIT in the 2002 Gujarat riots. During the ruling, the SC observed that the sting operations carried out by Tehelka regarding the riots have no evidentiary value.
The Supreme Court bench led by Justice AM Khanwilkar said that while the petitioner has heavily relied on the Tehelka tapes showing alleged confessions of some people that had appeared in 2007, they are not legally acceptable. “Upon investigation, if it was to be found that the tape and the contents have probative value, only then it could be used, that too against the maker of the statement alone and not against any other person,” the court noted.
One such tape which was recorded by Tehelka journalist Ashish Khetan features Babu Bajrangi alias Babubhai Patel, a Bajrang Dal leader who has been sentenced to 21 years imprisonment as the primary accused in the Naroda Patiya case. Khetan, who is also a former leader with the Aam Admi Party, recorded a sting interview of Bajrangi in which he could be heard making tall claims about the government of Gujarat giving an alleged free passage to Hindus to take revenge for the Godhra train massacre where 59 Hindus were burned alive.
In the sting video which has been touted as concluding evidence by many on social media sites, Babu Bajrangi, the Bajrang Dal leader can be heard admitting that Narendra Modi as the chief minister of Gujarat helped him in taking vengeance for the Godhra train burnings.
If this isn’t evidence, then God knows what’s evidence. I only hope to live till the day, all of these criminals are brought to justice. #BabuBajrangi #ZakiaJafri pic.twitter.com/J0vz2MvaiP
— Suby #ReleaseSanjivBhatt (@Subytweets) June 26, 2022
Bajrangi could be heard saying, “There were Police right there, just standing with eyes closed. The cops could have easily stopped us had they wanted to. The cops fired at them (Muslims), but not at us.” Bajrangi also claimed that the cops even told his men to go and ‘finish’ the other side. “We used their own gas cylinders to create explosions in their homes. The Police used to get calls from (Muslims) for help but they never answered the calls,” he said.
Bajrangi then talked about the Police Commissioner who came and said that such a huge death toll cannot be reported. “The bodies were dumped across the city and then recovered for postmortems. We butchered them like what happened in Haldighati and we are proud of it. We did not spare anyone of them – be it the women or children, we slashed and burnt them all.”
The petition filed by Zakia Jafri which made the case for a ‘larger conspiracy’, was based largely upon the Tehelka tapes. While the petition asked why the stings were not taken into much consideration by the SIT, it argued that interviews like those of Babu Bajrangi are a direct confession about the state joining hands with the arsonists in the Gujarat riots case.
4. Tehelka sting: Police couldn’t find any gun factory. Bajrang Dal guy is a convict in Naroda Patiya case and both he & VHP chap admitted they had no access to then CM and they made up yarns since the journalist Ashish Khaitan told them he wanted a juicy story. (11/n)
— Sandhya Ravishankar (@sandhyaravishan) June 27, 2022
Response by the state of Gujarat against the Tehelka tapes and statements by Bajrangi
The state of Gujarat submitted before the court that CM Narendra Modi has categorically dismissed any connection with Bajrangi and his associates during his tenure. Interviews given by Haresh Bhatt, the then MLA, Babu Bajrangi, and Rajendra Vyas, VHP Ahmedabad Head to Ashish Khetan, Special Correspondent for Tehelka were termed ‘false and incorrect’.
It should be noted that the issue of Babu Bajrangi’s claims was first raised in November 2007, after nearly six years of riots, and that too during the time of assembly elections in Gujarat in December 2007. Further, these issues were again raked up again in 2010 when the SIT appointed by the Supreme Court asked Narendra Modi to appear before them for his examination. “According to Narendra Modi, the whole episode is motivated and stage-managed and he had no personal knowledge about the authenticity of the said CD,” the response states.
Khetan wanted ‘spicy material’ for his thesis, admit Haresh Bhatt and Babu Bajrangi
The Naroda Patiya violence accused Babu Bajrangi and Haresh Bhatt have admitted their own presence in the sting CD. Bhatt stated that Khetan had approached him because he wanted to write a thesis on ‘Hindutva’. Apparently, he wanted Bhatt to contribute some spicy material for the same so that he could succeed in furthering his narrative. Reportedly, Khetan, as a Tehelka correspondent visited Bhatt at his residence in Ahmedabad as well as at Godhra at least 7-8 times in a month for the same.
Bhatt has admitted to having given answers as choreographed by Khetan in order to produce controversial material regarding the Gujarat riots. The accused has stated that the talks about the CBI enquiry and the story that he owned a gun factory where diesel bombs and pipe bombs were made and distributed to Hindus were ‘absolutely false and baseless’.
The answer submitted to the state of Gujarat mentions how Bhatt and Bajrangi admitted to having ordered about two truck loads of swords from Punjab and subsequently distributed them amongst Hindus. The story of making a rocket launcher in his gun factory and lighting a locally made bomb was also false, as admitted by the accused.
He has also mentioned that whatever was being said by him about Narendra Modi in the clip was all imaginary. Hence, the extra-judicial sting operation run by Tehelka does not hold much water when its own characters have accepted that they made up stories for the camera.
Babu Bajrangi’s post-facto admission after the sting
In the response filed by the state of Gujarat, the response petitions highlight the role of Babu Bajangi, whose admissions after the sting operation do not match with what he made up during the sting video. The response states that Ashish Khetan had given Bajrangi a script while he read out the same during the sting. “After going through the facts stated by these persons during the sting operation, it appears that they were bragging and that most of the facts stated by them are innocent,” the response states.
The story about a gun factory owned by Haresh Bhatt was completely made up as no evidence for the same was unearthed during the police investigation. The factual inaccuracies in the claims made by Babu Bajrangi also include him claiming over 700-800 dead bodies from the Naroda Patiya village being thrown by Ahmedabad Police in different parts of the city, upon the direction of the Commissioner of Police. This is absolutely incorrect as only 84 dead bodies were found at Naroda Patiya and 11 persons were reported missing during the recovery.
What the SIT found out
The sting operation of Tehelka carried out by Ashish Khetan has been submitted by the SIT in three out of nine sets of cases assigned to SIT by the High Court. Babu Bajrangi, who was seen making assertions in the sting was charge-sheeted and tried in connection with the evidence concerning the sting operation, However, The SIT noted that the call details of Bajrangi reveal that he was in Ahmedabad till noon on the day the violence broke and hence could not have remained present at Godhra at the time of the incident.
The Islamist and Liberal circles on social media who refuse to open their eyes regarding the contradictory assertions made by the accused in the case, still regard the Tehelka tapes – especially the sting of Babu Bajrangi as the conclusive evidence in the case. However, the same material has been dismissed first by the SIT, and later the Supreme Court while upholding the clean cheat given to Narendra Modi.
The fabricated material produced by Ashish Khetan, which is promoted by his ilk to this day has been categorically exposed as merely probative and contentious by the courts themselves. Similarly, so-called investigative Journalist Rana Ayyub’s book ‘Gujarat Files – Anatomy of a coverup’ on the Haren Pandya case was quashed by the Supreme Court calling it being based upon surmises, conjectures, and suppositions and having no evidentiary value”.
Even Tehelka, which was publishing dodgy sting operations on its website linked to Gujarat riots, refused to publish the story by Ayyub stating it did not meet the editorial standards of the publication. Madhu Trehan, a journalist also offered Rana Ayyub to run her investigative tapes and stings on Aaj Tak, for which she refused.
