A man’s murder, a woman’s funeral

A man’s murder, a woman’s funeral

Why is the Gujarat government opposing a CBI enquiry in the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh? Is it because it will bring Narendra Modi and his Home Minister, Amit Shah, under the scanner?

Amit Sengupta Delhi

What do you say about a successful hate laboratory where rank communalists have entrenched themselves across layers of governance and there is not a single window of secular justice and hope? So, while ‘terrorists’ are bumped off routinely without a trace and often in brazenly mysterious and diabolical circumstances, with the media often dogmatically toeing the establishment line, what about accountability of the top brass in the political and police establishment in the clear case of a fake encounter?

Witness the illustrious record of the Director General of Police, Gujarat, P C Pandey, promoted by Modi despite a rather uncanny track record. Pandey, the then police chief of the city, allowed Ahmedabad to burn as killer mobs led by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal murdered men and children, raped women, looted and plundered shops and homes after the Godhra train killings. With the then VHP top gun Gordhan Zadaphiya as home minister, and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak Narendra Modi at the helm, Pandey and his police force, as several independent reports, tribunals and media exposes, and also cell phone records have proved, allowed the mobs to go berserk in a pre-meditated, pre-planned, meticulously designed, state-sponsored massacre.

There are cell phone records of BJP-VHP leaders in police control rooms, and even Zadaphiya was reportedly directly involved. Witness the fact that Pandey met former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffrey and assured him police protection – and soon after the mob came and burnt scores of people in the Gulberg society in Ahmedabad, hacking them to pieces. Jaffrey’s wife saw her husband and others being butchered. Pandey’s police was nowhere around.

In Naroda Patiya in the city, people have accused BJP-VHP leaders Mayaben Kodnani, Babu Bajrangi and Jaydeep Patel of openly instigating and manipulating the mobs during the carnage. Bajrangi single-handedly stopped Parzania this year in Gujarat, while targeting young girls and boys in Ahmedabad, especially Muslims, as the top moral cop, even while the Gujarat police looked the other way.

Indeed, BJP MP Babubhai Katara from Dahod, caught in the massive nexus of human trafficking recently, and his son, have reportedly been accused in the Gujarat killings. And how come the BJP top brass and the Gujarat police had no clue of this flourishing racket?

So what is so surprising about the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi in a state that has seen a spate of fake encounters since Modi unleashed his politics of mass elimination and collective phobia?  Every Muslim killed in encounters has been branded a terrorist in a state where Modi and his followers have openly asked Indian Muslims to go to Pakistan.