28 February 2023 mainstream media and social media were full of reports on the 2002 Gujarat riots. They were specifically focused on the death of Congress leader Ehsan Jafri who was killed by a rioting mob at his residence in Ahmedabad’s Gulbarg society on 28 February 2002. Politicians, too, invoked Jafri to make a veiled attack on the RSS and Narendra Modi led government. Prime Minister Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat when the riots took place. Here are some of the headlines, tweets by media houses and politicians.
Remembering Shaheed Ehsan Jafri. On this date in 2002, he was killed by Hindutvadi mobs during Gujarat pogrom. He was hacked and then burnt. His wife Zakia fought a decades-long battle for justice. She lost. May Allah lessen the grief of the Jafri family. pic.twitter.com/0Qy9iNKWoV
— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) February 28, 2023
AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi tweeted that Jafri was killed by ‘Hindutvadi mob’ during ‘Gujarat pogrom’. He also talked about one ‘decades old battle for justice’ which his widow Zakia Jafri fought but lost.
Former MP Ehsan Jafri's memory ignites our outrage over the 2002 Gujarat riots, a chilling reminder of the Sangh Parivar's callous disregard for humanity. Let's stand with Zakia Jafri in her fight for justice, and demand accountability for these unspeakable crimes. pic.twitter.com/vrLbvqQ2wZ
— Pinarayi Vijayan (@pinarayivijayan) February 28, 2023
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan also remembered Jafri and dragged in the Sangh Parivar. He also tweeted about Zakia’s fight for justice and demanding accountability for ‘unspeakable crimes’.
This image will haunt every Compassionate Indian for ages.
— Gabbar (@Gabbar0099) February 28, 2023
This is the house of Ehsan Jafri, Ehsan Jafri's brutal assassination by Hindutva terrorists and 2002 Gujarat massacre left an irrevocable scar on Indian polity and democracy. 2/2 pic.twitter.com/1GjReDGxHk
Random but influential Twitter accounts of Muslim Twitter users, quite likely funded by the ummah, also tweeted about Jafri. The news clipping shared above refers to the Sabarmati Express train set on fire by Muslim mob that burnt alive 59 karsevaks returning from Ayodhya as ‘Godhra train fire’. This tweet had over 650 retweets, 1600 likes and over 41.2k views.
Replug | A witness who survived the Gulburg Society carnage later told a court that Ehsan Jafri, a former MP for Ahmedabad, even called Narendra Modi: “When I asked him what Modi said, [Jafri] said there was no question of help, instead he got abuses.”
— The Caravan (@thecaravanindia) February 28, 2023
https://t.co/CH9atpAdMV pic.twitter.com/dvBm0bzeXv
Propaganda website The Caravan also cited one unnamed ‘eyewitness’ who claimed that Jafri had called the then Gujarat CM Modi who ‘abused’ Jafri and denied help. There is no such record of such ‘abuses’ by Modi.
To remember Ehsan Jafri, who was murdered exactly 21 years ago, is important because he represented a political culture that has been dominant in Gujarat – 4 decades ago… and history matters even more when textbooks are rewritten & revisionism prevails.https://t.co/998hXGhjqi
— Jaffrelot Christophe (@jaffrelotc) February 28, 2023
Nothing gives Indian media the pleasure when their views get validated by a foreigner who would say exactly what they would like to hear and want their readers to read: Modi is evil.
Remembering Ehsan Jafri
— زماں (@Delhiite_) February 28, 2023
Ehsan was ki||ed exactly 21 years ago, on the first day of the wave of anti-musIim vioIence
He went out of the house, hands folded, begged the crowd to have mercy, offered that they should kiII him if they must but in return they should spare the others. pic.twitter.com/VrSZoZnuJa
More Muslim influencers tweeted about Jafri. This Twitter user claimed Jafri went out of his house and folded his hands and begged the crowd to have mercy. He claimed that Jafri even offered himself to the mob to kill him and spare others and return.
Except, that is not what happened.
Ehsan Jafri provoked the mob that killed him, court observed
In 2016, a Special Court in Ahmedabad had ruled out any conspiracy angle in Ehsan Jafri death case. The court had observed that Jafri had fired his gun at the frenzied mob that had gathered outside his residential society that led to death of one person. This provoked the mob. The court had asserted that the firing cannot condone the act of the mob.
Special SIT court judge P B Desai had observed that Jafri’s private firing at the mob acted as a catalyst which infuriated the mob that killed him. The limited police force had no means to disperse the mob. Jafri had fired eight rounds from his gun which killed one and injured 15 people in the mob.
The court had observed that no untoward incident had taken place between 9:30 am and 1:30 pm when the violence was breaking out across Gujarat. Suddenly at 1:30 pm, as if a ‘tap was turned on’, the violence got out of control. Jafri fired his weapon at around that time. The court had added that this act of Jafri of firing his private weapon at the mob cannot be an excuse to condone the act of mob.
In June 2022, the Supreme Court of India had upheld the clean chit given by SIT. Hearing a plea by Jafri’s widow Zakia Jafri challenging the clean chit by SIT court, the SC said that Jafri’s appeal is ‘devoid of merits’. A bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar refused to order a probe into allegations of a “larger conspiracy” behind the Gujarat riots.
No one burnt the train killing 59 karsevaks
What is tragic is that while the riots are condemned every year and those who lost their lives mourned, and rightly so, the Godhra carnage is almost never talked about. None of the politicians above or media houses mourned the loss of lives of 59 karsevaks returning from Ayodhya who were burnt alive by a frenzied Muslim mob at Godhra railway station. Is it because the victims there were Hindus and perpetrator of these unspeakable crimes Muslims?
Further, if by any far off chance they do mention the Godhra carnage, they always have qualifiers. It is ‘Godhra train incident’ or ‘Godhra fire incident’ and then ‘no one knows how the train caught fire’. Well, it was set on fire by a Muslim mob. Eyewitnesses have said that in recorded statement with the Nanavati commission. A copy of the report can be read here [pdf].
In fact, that is not it. ‘Activists’ have over the years taken advantage of media’s inherent Modi hatred to perpetuate lies. Here are some of the ones debunked by investigating authorities which media will never tell you.
‘Karsevaks ‘abducted’ Muslim girl at Godhra’, ‘pregnant woman raped, belly cut open and foetus flung on sword’ and other lies
Here are some of the myths perpetuated around Godhra carnage and subsequent violence:
Myth 1: Pregnant Kausar Bano was raped and her fetus was pulled out of her womb and flung into the fire
In the aftermath of the Godhra train burning incident that triggered widespread violence across Gujarat, many media outlets at that time ran a story that a pregnant Muslim woman was raped by a Hindu mob, her pregnant belly slit open and her foetus flung into the fire. Some versions also included that the above act was done with a sword.
Most reports cited Saira Bano, Kausar Bano’s sister-in-law who claimed “What they did to my sister-in-law’s sister Kausar Bano was horrific and heinous. She was nine months pregnant. They cut open her belly, took out her foetus with a sword and threw it into a blazing fire. Then they burnt her as well.” Some versions of the story narrated horrific versions of the fate of the foetus. In other versions, the foetus was slaughtered with the sword, while in some, the foetus was swung on the point of the sword and then thrown into a fire.
However, the postmortem of Kausar Bano told a different story.
A 2010 report states that the doctor who conducted a post-mortem on Kauser found the foetus intact. Dr J S Kanoria, who had conducted the autopsy on 2nd March 2002 presented supporting documents to the special court and said that the foetus was intact in the woman’s womb. The foetus weighed 2,500 gms and was 45 cms long.
Further, during the postmortem and cross-examination of the witness, it had come to light that Kausar Bano died of suffocation, fear and shock and her body bore no external or internal injuries. As per reports, during his deposition, Kanoria stated that Bano’s body bore no internal or external injury; moreover, there was no sword injury on her body. Dr Kanoria was working at the government civil hospital during the riots and had given a statement that Kausar Bano’s foetus was removed after the post-mortem. The post-mortem was conducted on 1st March 2002.
Myth 2: A stove spill caused the fire inside the Sabarmati express
Another popular myth that was widely shared by propagandists and even media outlets is the “accidental fire” theory that said the Godhra train burning was an incidental fire caused from within the bogey and not by a bloodthirsty mob of Islamists, who harboured deep antagonism for the passengers of the Sabarmati express since they had been to Ayodhya for karseva of the Ram Temple to be built at its original place.
However, the Nanavati-Mehta commission, a commission of inquiry appointed by the government of Gujarat to probe the Godhra train burning incident of 27 February 2002, squarely rejected the claims that fire happened inside the compartment after some inflammable liquid from a stove spilt after some karsevak tried to cook a meal in the compartment. The Commission report said, “The witness has denied that such fire could have taken place in the coach as a result of inflammable liquid in a vessel getting spilt in the coach. This witness has produced photographs taken by his office at the time of examination of that coach.”
Further, Mukesh Joshi, Scientific Officer at FSL, had gone to Godhra thrice in 2002 and he had observed, “n hit marks on the outer side of coach S/6 caused by stones hitting the coach. There were burn marks also on the outer side of coaches S/6 and S/7.”
The Nanavati-Mehta Commission report then talked about the statements of various eyewitnesses. Multiple eyewitnesses narrated how the mob started pelting stones from the left side of the compartment as the train started to move away from the platform. “Sajjanlal Raniwal has stated that as soon as the train had moved out of the platform, a mob standing on the left-hand side had started throwing stones at it and for that reason, he was required to close the door and shutters of the windows of their compartment. If really that had not happened, there was no other reason for Sajjanlal to say so. He would not have closed the windows unless he was compelled by the circumstances to do so.”
“The passengers have also said that as the persons on the left-hand side of the train had started throwing stones at the train, they were required to close the windows of their coach. Some of the witnesses have stated that stones which were thrown on the train had a broken glass of one or two windows and therefore, the passengers in the coach were required to close the tin/metal shutters of the windows on that side. Hariprasad has also clearly stated that right from the time the train had moved out of the station, pelting of stones on the train had started and because of that passengers had closed the windows of their coach. There is no reason to doubt this part of their evidence. Hariprasad and other witnesses would not have said so unless it was true as they had nothing to gain by saying something that which was not correct,” the commission further said.
Myth 3: Short circuit caused a fire inside the train
Another conspiracy theory about the fire that was floated by Mukul Sinha’s Jan Sangharsh Manch was ‘short circuit’. The Nanavati-Mehta Commission had this to say about the claims: “A short circuit is another probability canvassed by the Jan Sangharsh Manch. No evidence has been led and no material has been produced before the Commission to show the possibility of a short circuit has occurred in the coach. The reason given in support of this possibility is that there was smoke in the coach at first and flames were seen after some time. Not a single passenger of coach S/6 examined by the Commission was asked if anything like short-circuit had happened in the coach.”
Further, the report said, “During the inspection by the Commission in presence of advocates appearing for the parties it was noticed that the electric wires were in the upper parts of the coach. If there was a fire because of a short circuit the passengers who were near that place would have immediately come to know about it. In that case, the passengers who were sitting on the lower seats would not have climbed up on the upper berths to protect themselves. On the contrary, those who were sitting on the upper berths would have immediately come down for saving themselves from fire and electric shock. The passengers would have left the coach immediately through all the four doors and so many persons would not have lost their lives.”
While motivated individuals tried to paint the Godhra train burning incident as an accidental fire from within the bogey, the Justice Nanavati-Mehta Committee report [pdf] talked about what actually conspired in Godhra that led to the deaths of 59 Hindus. Right after the Godhra platform and boundary, there is a road and a locality named ‘Signal Falia’. “It extends up to the culvert and goes further towards A cabin. It is a locality mainly inhabited by Ghanchi Muslims,” the report mentions. When the train arrived, a lot of unauthorised vendors, mainly Ghanchi Muslims, would come on the platform and sell snacks, cold drinks, bidis, etc.
The report further states that the train arrived at the platform at 7:43 AM as it was running about 5 hours late and there was a halt of about 5 minutes. In its evidence portion, the report cites media reports from 28th February 2002, the day after the carnage, where leading mainstream media had reported that a mob has set Hindus on fire. They mentioned how Hindus were returning from karseva and how the mob set the train coaches on fire with petrol.
The Times of India had mentioned how the train was stopped at Signal Falia where someone had pulled the chain and after initial pelting of stones on coach S6 and S7, windows were broken and petrol bombs were thrown inside. The Indian Express, too, carried eyewitness statements on how the mob had set the coach ablaze after pelting stones.
Myth 4: Karsevaks attempted to abduct a Muslim girl that goaded the mob into burning the train
Yet another fictional tale talks about a “scuffle” following which ‘karsevaks’ tried to abduct a Muslim girl, raising the hackles of the Muslim mob and eventually leading them into doing what occurred at Godhra. However, the Nanavati-Mehta commission rejected the hypothesis, stating that the claims of karsevaks abducting a Muslim girl were far-fetched and did not belong to the realm of reality.
“From the evidence of all these witnesses and other material on record it becomes clear that except overcrowding in the train and occasional raising of slogans inside the train and on platforms of the intervening stations, the Ramsevaks had not done anything and no incident had happened earlier which could have led to the incident which later on happened at Godhra,” the commission concluded on the rumours of a scuffle that triggered the train burning.
Regarding the ‘attempted’ abduction of a Muslim woman following the “scuffle”, the Commission comes to the conclusion that the version given by the lady did not appear to be true. “If they had really gone to the station for going to Vadodara, they would have boarded the Sabarmati Express train as it would have taken them to Vadodara earlier, but they had not done so. The alleged attempt to abduct her was made while they were near the bookstall. That would mean that they were almost in the middle of the covered portion of the platform and very close to the offices of the railway staff,” the commission observed.
“The evidence discloses that there were many persons on the platform. Apart from passengers, many Muslim vendors were there. The railway staff was present in their offices. Some policemen were also present. If she had raised shouts to save her then they would have been heard at least by some persons who were near about but not a single vendor or anyone else has come forward to support her version,” the commission noted while debunking the testimony of the Muslim woman.
“According to her evidence, they had then gone inside the office of the booking clerk. They did not inform anyone there about what had happened. When inside that office, they had no reason to be afraid of anything thereafter and return immediately to their relative’s place instead of waiting for the Memu train which was about to arrive. Her explanation that she was much frightened and had giddiness and, therefore, they had decided not to go back to Vadodara on that day, does not appear to be true,” the Nanavati Mehta Commission report stated.
Myth 5: Tainted former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt met CM Narendra Modi at his residence on 27 February 2002
Another popular myth that is widely shared among liberal circles is that former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt met with CM Narendra Modi in the latter’s residence on 27 February 2022. This meeting is especially highlighted to implicate PM Modi for being complicit in the carnage that followed in the wake of the Godhra train burning incident.
However, the Nanavati-Mehta commission concluded that the former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who is currently serving life imprisonment in a custodial death case, had lied and made up stories about him attending a meeting at the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s residence on February 27, 2002.
Bhatt, who became a big face of the anti-Modi lobby, alleged in 2011 that during the 2002 post-Godhra riots, the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi had called a meeting at his residence on 27 February 2002 to “let Hindus vent out their anger against Muslims so that repeat of Godhra-like incident never happens in the state”.
Bhatt, in an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court, had claimed that this meeting took place following the Sabarmati Express burning incident in which 59 Ayodhya Kar Sevaks had died.
At the time of the alleged meeting, Bhatt was the deputy commissioner of the state intelligence bureau. He further stated in the affidavit that the meeting was attended by eight top police officers. Bhatt also alleged that the SIT constituted to probe the riots was trying to protect the Gujarat government.
The Nanavati-Mehta commission report has, however, rubbished Bhatt’s allegations saying that he used a false document, a fax message, to support his presence at the meeting. “On consideration of the evidence, it clearly appears that Bhatt is not telling the truth with regards to what happened in the meeting held on February 27, 2002, at the CM’s residence. Claims made by him of being present in the meeting appear to be false,” stated the second part of the report of the ‘Commission of Inquiry’ by Justice G T Nanavati and Justice Akshay Mehta.
The report adds that Bhatt’s claims about chief minister Modi’s statements were a story made up by him and “deserve to be discarded as false.”
The commission stated that the copy of the fax message, which Bhatt had used to claim he was present in the February 27, 2002 meeting with the then Gujarat CM Modi, was, in fact, sent on March 2, 2002, by one PP Upadhyay, about an incident in Pandarva, Panchmahal.
Myth 6: Dead bodies of Godhra carnage were paraded to stoke violence
The mortal remains of those who were burnt alive in Godhra carnage were eventually sent off to their hometowns for proper cremation with full respect. The Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, which would have been an obvious choice to bring home the deceased, was skipped. The Civil Hospital is situated in Asarwa, Ahmedabad which is a communally sensitive area. Years later, in 2008, the same civil hospital in Ahmedabad was the target of a terror attack that claimed the lives of 56 people and left over 240 injured.
On 28th February, 2002, during the wee hours of morning at 3:35 am, the bodies of the deceased were brought to Ahmedabad’s Sola civil hospital. Sola civil hospital is on the outskirts of the city in an isolated area. The decision to bring bodies there instead of main civil hospital in Asarwa was to avoid further escalation of communal tension. The Times of India report from that day mentions that the bodies were brought in a convoy of five trucks being piloted by a Police Gypsy.
Small bundles, bodies of children, were handed over to their relatives and the atmosphere was sad. Remains of some victims were placed on ice slabs and they were charred beyond recognition. Emotions were high, obviously, as they saw the disfigured corpses of their loved ones burnt alive. Their fault? They were Hindus on pilgrimage to Ayodhya.
Bodies were brought in at 3:30 am, not during daytime. They were brought in middle of the night to avoid further escalation of tension. They had to be brought to Ahmedabad because most of the passengers were from Vadodara and Ahmedabad and surely they deserve a more dignified cremation. They were brought quietly without any ceremonial procession, so that further tension is not escalated.
That is one of the first reports on bodies being brought to Ahmedabad. Nowhere it mentions they were ‘paraded’. But eventually someone, somewhere lied, and the lie continues to shame Hindus even in their death.
And while we’re at the conspiracies, let’s get back to Ehsan Jafri’s widow Zakia Jafri who was one of the first to claim the dead bodies of Godhra carnage victims were paraded. The Supreme Court last year dismissed Zakia’s petition and accused ‘activist’ Teesta Setalvad, one of the co-petitioners, of keeping the pot boiling for years just for their political agenda. These people were playing politics over dead bodies of Hindus.
The Supreme Court has categorically rejected allegations that the post-mortem of bodies was conducted in the open in a railway yard and the bodies were paraded from Godhra to Ahmedabad and called it proof of larger conspiracy, terming them “pure conjectures and surmises” and “devoid of merits”. Interestingly, in the judgment, the Court mentioned alleged rights activist Teesta Setalvad to have exploited the emotions of the petitioner Zakia Jafri for her own ‘ulterior motives’.
On page 117, the court noted that in her evidence dated October 22, 2010, Zakia Ahsan Jafri admitted to the fact that RB Shreekumar and Teesta Setalvad were working together for an NGO. Teesta was convener of the Private Citizens Commission, an NGO headed by former Supreme Court Judges. The court observed that she was in a position to influence Zakia.
The court noted, “It is submitted that Ms Teesta Setalvad, for reasons best known to her and out of vengeance, was interested in continuing with her tirade and persecution on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations in the complaint in the name of the quest for justice with real purpose to keep the pot boiling and sensationalise and politicise the crime.”
On Page 118, the court observed that Zakia had admitted to concealing the fact that she had known Teesta for some time. She admitted during her cross-examination that the statement that she gave to Nanavati-Shah Commission was tutored by Teesta Setalvad.
Riots unfortunate, but propagandists have built their careers on corpses
Riots were unfortunate as was the Godhra carnage. Nothing justifies violence. However, when you condemn one and do not even acknowledge the other, you are being dishonest. If Ehsan Jafri’s death is mourned, so should be the death of those 59 karsevaks, who have been forgotten for being Hindus.
