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Modi let off the hook?

Kuldip Nayar writes from New Delhi
I suspected some design when the Justice Nanavati Commission submitted only a part of the inquiry report on what was known as the Godhara incident. I could see the contents written on the face of a gleeful Gujarat Chief Minister Narender Modi in a photograph at the time of the report's presentation. It was clear that Modi had been exoner-
Was it necessary for Justice Nanavati to suggest this or even release a part of the report if he did not want to favour Modi and the BJP? Nanavati has clarified after heavy criticism that his first report was confined only to the burning of the Sabarmati Express coach. He has said that he did not give a clean chit to Modi or his government, and that he was still working on the rioting after the Godhara incident. Why should the Nanavati Commission, which has had as many as 16 extensions, submit an incomplete report? There was no pressure on the Commission. Then why hurry with it?
It looks as if Nanavati is a party to the travesty of justice: separating the report into two parts while it
should have been one. TYue, the BJP and Modi wanted it that way. But I cannot comprehend why Nanavati has done so. He knows that nobody can condone the killing of some 2,000 Muslims, not even his Commission. The ethnic cleansing in Gujarat has been recorded visually, and there are many witnesses and document to corroborate it. Is his compulsion on the second part the reason for splitting the report?
Maybe, Nanavati has a point.
But he has already held local Muslims guilty of "conspiracy" for burning the coach. The manner in which he has exonerated Modi and his officials suggests that Nanavati was discussing the Gujarat carnage, not the burning of the coach. Since the full report will be ready only by the end of the year, this gives an opportunity to Modi and the BJP to go to town on what Nanavati has already said, and exploit the findings in the November assembly elections in five states.
It was clear that Nanavati was more or less repeating the version which Modi and the BJP had pro-
jected to provide an alibi for the massacre of the Muslims soon after 59 kar sevaks were burnt alive in the compartment that was set on fire. The report released by Nanavati is no different. He too says the fire was "a pre-planned conspiracy" by local Muslims. Justice Nanavati has also ruled out the involvement of any religious or political organisation, exonerating the BJP, the Bajrang Dal and the like.
The version which Nanavati has
relied upon is in stark contrast to what another Supreme Court judge, Justice U.C. Bannerjee, had reported. According to him -- he was appointed by the Railways --the fire was not ignited from outside the coach but from within it, either by accident or design. Bannerjee has repeated his findings even after Nanavati's report.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT), appointed by the Supreme Court to reinvestigate the riots, is still at work Nanavati should have waited till it had given its report. By not doing so, Justice Nanavati, himself from the Supreme Court, has only shown scant respect to the
Supreme Court. Even the petition challenging the Bannerjee Committee's findings is still pending before the state high court. Should Nanavati have still gone ahead?
The conflicting reports, one by Justice Bannerjee and the other by Justice Nanavati, bring no credit to the judiciary. Had such a thing happened at the level of the two judges in a subordinate court, the high court would have taken them
to task I cannot say anything more, but I do feel intrigued by the spectacle when the judges involved are from the Supreme Court
It is obvious that Nanavati wanted to favour Gujarat, the state which appointed him to head the inquiry commission. He knows he cannot but criticise the state in the post-Godhara report. Did he intentionally separate the two incidents, which are really one? Since the first report is favourable to the state, he let it go as if it was independent of the other. Legally, there is nothing wrong in releasing the report in parts. But, ethically, it is not correct, because people are now expected
to make up their minds on the basis of a partial report.
I have a nagging feeling that the post-Godhara report, which is bound to hold Modi and the Gujarat administration guilty and corroborate the thesis that there was a prior plan to cleanse the state ethnically, will be released after the general elections which are due early next year. Wittingly or unwittingly, Nanavati has helped Modi and his party.
The Jan Sangarsh Manch (JSM), a Gujarat NGO, was the first to react to the submission of the incomplete report. It has criticised the Nanavati Commission for being hasty in giving an incomplete report to the state government The JSM’s convenor, S.H. Iyer, has questioned the urgency of the partial report He asks: "Don't the thousands of victims of the post-Godhara riots have any right to know why their lives and property were destroyed? And which minister, politician, police officer or organisation was responsible for the massacres."
I recall talking to Justice
Nanavati before he submitted his report on the 1984 riots, in which 3,000 Sikhs were killed at Delhi alone. He told me what happened in Delhi could happen anywhere in India and at any time because the police knew no limits and politicians no norms of behaviour. He even commented on the probe that he was conducting on the Gujarat killings. He said: "I have seen the same pattern in Gujarat" He also said he saw many similarities between the happenings in Delhi and Gujarat, and he had no good word either for the politicians or the authorities. Therefore, I find it difficult to understand when he gives a clean chit to Modi, his council of ministers and police officials. Former chief justice, J.C. .Verma, then chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, has released a letter which shows that he had cautioned Nanavati. In his statement. Justice Varma has said that Nanavati's clean chit is far from the truth.
In the report on the 1984 riots, . Nanavati had expressed his help-lessness. After 20 years, he said, there was no concrete evidence to pursue, nothing to bring the killers to book I hope he does not take the same line on the post-Godhara killings and express his helplessness once again. The 1984 killings were two decades old when Justice Nanavati was asked to probe. The killings in Gujarat are only six years old. The nation expects him to do a betterjob.
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Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist
***I recall talking to Justice Nanavati before he submitted his report on the 1984 riots, in which 3,000 Sikhs were killed at Delhi alone. He told me what happened in Delhi could happen anywhere in India and at any time because the police knew no limits and politicians no norms of behaviour. He even commented on the probe that he was conducting on the Gujarat killings. He said: "I have seen the same pattern in Gujarat."***