India Behind The Lens (News Centre)

She begins her piece with the line:"In defence of the insulting and repugnant 'puppy' analogy he used when asked in an interview about the 2002 pogroms in Gujarat, Narendra Modi tweeted "In our culture every form of life is valued and worshipped." Except, he could have added, if you are a Muslim or a Christian."
 This is an extreme..

We have already seen the steps taken by the Government to quell the violence, and in saving the lives of the victims- for example in Sanjeli, Bodeli and Viramgam areas of Gujarat. Hindus were also saved from violent Muslims in many places in Gujarat- like in Jamalpur on 1 March 2002 and in Modasa on 19 March 2002 when Muslims attacked. But there has also been a claim by many that the Gujarat ..

Fact: Out of Gujarat’s 18,600 villages, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had units in 10,000 villages at the time of the riots of 2002. If it had wanted- it could have easily organized retaliatory riots in many of these 10,000 villages. Instead-only 40 out of the state’s 18,600 villages saw riots. VHP General Secretary Dr Praveen Togadia is a Patel and hails from Saurashtra region ..

Fact: The police was slow to act on Muslim fanatics for fear of being called ‘anti-Muslim’ by the media. As many as 170 people were shot dead by the police in Gujarat- i.e. killed in police firing. Muslims greeted the police, and also the army, with bullets and turned off the power supply, and also started riots and accused the police of being biased, when the police came to searc..

"Ahmedabad has a police force of 6,000, including 1,500 armed personnel. In addition, the entire state has just four companies (530 jawans) of the Rapid Action Force (RAF) of which only one company could be spared for Ahmedabad. Considering that the mobs that simultaneously surfaced at nearly half a dozen places numbered from 2,000 to 10,000, the forces proved woefully inadequate. At one..

Fact: While Muslims were killed in one-sided attacks in many places in the state- like in Naroda Patiya, Gulbarg Society, Naroda Gram, Sadarpar and other places- by and large- the riots were not entirely one-sided. Muslims were equally on the offensive, at least after the first three days. Hindus were killed brutally in Himmatnagar, Danilimda, and Sindhi Market and other areas of Ahmedabad-as..

Fact: As per figures given by the Union Minister of State for Home Shriprakash Jaiswal, who belongs to the Congress Party, in Parliament on 11 May 2005, 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed in the riots, 2548 people were injured and 223 people were missing. This was in a WRITTEN REPLY to a question asked by a Congress member on the religion wise casualties in Gujarat after Godhra. The repor..

The Gujarat Government spent a lot of money for providing relief to the riot victims. None other than the UPA Government’s MoS for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal said in the Rajya Sabha that too in a written reply on 11 May 2005. He said an amount of Rs 1.5 lakh was paid by the government to the next of kin of each person killed. In addition, Jaiswal said relief was also extended by the state ..

Here in this 4th episode of the series, we present some excerpts from media reports published then, which highlight the facts, which were later buried in the anti-Modi noise created, catalysed and corroborated by the same media.

The Hindu - 4th March 2002 “AH..

On the second day of riots i.e. 1st March 2002, the Army staged a flag march in Ahmedabad at 11:30 AM. The Hindu reported "The Army began flag marches in the worst-affected areas of Ahmedabad, Baroda, Rajkot and Godhra cities and the 'shoot at sight' order w..

Now-the government faced genuine difficulties in controlling the anger of the masses in view of the limited police force. Uday Mahurkar wrote for weekly India Today dated 18 March 2002:

“Ahmedabad has a police force of 6,000, including 1,500 armed personnel. In ..

The much-hyped, much-repeated allegations of the Indian media, both electronic and print, that the post-Godhra riots of 2002 in Gujarat were “sponsored” by the state BJP government, or at least, “the state government turned a blind eye to the rioting” are nothing but a figment of their imagination, stemming out from their biased and prejudiced vision.

Two surv..