The 2002 Gujarat massacre is still haunting Indian politics, reports Sudhanshu Ranjan from New Delhi Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who earned the sobriquet of Narendra Miliosevic following the March 2002 wholesale police massacre of protesters in Gujarat, remains beset with controversies. Two controversies surrounding Modi last week were not confined to Gujarat but have created tremours in national politics. The first was a statement by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 13 June that the Gujarat riots caused the defeat of the Bhartiya Janat Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. Two days later on 15 June city police in Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat, gunned down four terrorists, including a 19-year-old woman, linked to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), or "army of the pure" -- a clandestine militant Islamic group blamed for numerous army attacks in Kashmir and parts of India. The police claimed that the militants were on a mission to assassinate Modi. According to police sources, two of the slain militants, Zeeshan Johar and Amzad Ali, were Pakistanis while a third, Javed Mohamed, hailed from Pune. The identity of the young woman killed could not be established immediately. Later it was found that the teenager was Ishrat Jahan Sheikh, a college student from Mumbai and a resident of Mumbra, Thane in Maharashtra. Vajpayee's statement and the encounter, though seemingly disparate and different, are being seen as inextricably linked. If politics is about timing, Vajpayee seems a master at balancing when to sulk and when to blurt. So when Vajpayee turned his annual retreat to Manali into a public post-mortem of the BJP's electoral defeat, he took friends and foes alike by surprise. His assertion that the Gujarat riots were a key factor in the party's fall from power, and that this would be discussed at an upcoming Mumbai meeting of the BJP national executive, left colleagues embarrassed and flabbergasted. The statement evoked sharp criticism, not only from BJP allies like the hardcore Hindu fundamentalist organisations, the Vihwa Hindu Parishad (VHP -- World Hindu Council) and Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS -- National Volunteers Association), which rallied behind Modi, but also from BJP cadres. The VHP and the RSS rubbished the statement as anti--Hindu and thundered that the BJP lost because of Muslim appeasement, not riots, even going to the extent of asking Vajpayee and his key ally L K Advani to renounce politics and make way for younger leaders. They said that had Gujarat been such a major factor the BJP could not have secured such spectacular victories in the legislative assembly elections in three states last November. As BJP President M Venkaiah Naidu and leader of the opposition L K Advani scrambled to pick up the pieces, urgent calls were placed to Vajpayee in Manali. The tenor was put across the firm sentiment that Vajpayee's statement had not gone down at all well with the party and the Sangh Parivar (VHP and RSS, and other allies). A brief was agreed upon. Naidu told the media that Modi and Gujarat were not on the Mumbai agenda. But the sermons from Vajpayee in Manali continued. Vajpayee again asserted on 17 June that Gujarat would certainly be discussed. Alarm bells now rang loud and clear: a compromise was hurriedly crafted. The BJP parliamentary board would meet on 20 June, two days before the national executive, and discuss Gujarat. A party panel would examine poll results; Vajpayee's honour would be intact and the Mumbai executive rescued from further controversy. This is not exactly, however, what happened. Caving in under pressure, Vajpayee beat a hasty retreat and owned up to responsibility for the rout in recent polls and even announced he would do penance for the debacle, for the elections were fought in his name. He also ruled out that discussion of Modi's removal would figure in the three-day BJP national executive meeting. To Vajpayee's further embarrassment, it did figure: the national executive this week ruled out replacing Modi, whom Vajpayee had wanted removed since April 2002. As to the killing of four in Ahmedabad, two days later the incident turned into a controversy with the police account of events being questioned and the Gujarat Congress stepping in to give it a political twist. Joining the issue, the Congress-led Maharashtra government ordered an inquiry to ascertain whether Ishrat Jahan, the 19-year-old college student, had a criminal record. Earlier, the Gujarat Congress demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe, alleging that the violent encounter was "fabricated". The Thane police raided Ishrat's Mumbra home and said there was no evidence to prove that she was a criminal, much less a terrorist. Ishrat's mother, Shamima Jahan Sheikh, also demanded a CBI probe, insisting her daughter was innocent. However, Gujarat police claimed that the lack of a criminal record was no proof of innocence. This was taken by some as a suggestion that she was one of the LeT's new recruits who are often from good families, are good students without criminal records. Meanwhile, the elderly father of Javed, one of the four terrorists killed, came to his dead son's defence, saying Javed -- a Hindu before converting to Islam -- was an innocent taxi driver who was possibly used by men who hired or hijacked his vehicle. In New Delhi, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) stepped into the controversy giving the Gujarat police six weeks to complete its probe and file an "action taken" report. If news reports questioning the police version are true, there has been a serious attack on human rights in Gujarat, NHRC Chief Justice A S Anand commented. Suspicions have been raised in particular as the police version of events followed a pattern identical to at least six other such encounters since December 2001 when Modi came to power. Each of these took place late in the night in deserted spots and with no witnesses. In each case, the police claim "terrorists" fired first. Yet in no case was a policeman hurt. Why was Ishrat in Ahmedabad in the first place? Thane police opine she was in love with one of the other men. However, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), an agency of the union government, is not ready to buy Thane police's theory. According to IB sources, Ishrat was not innocent: "She had been on six trips in the past three months with LeT operatives." However, IB sources dismissed Gujarat police's claim that the four were on a mission to kill Modi. Yet Gujarat police claim to have recovered a diary of Ishrat in which she wrote, "We went to M." Senior police officials of Gujarat take "M" for Modi and interpret that they had gone to Modi's residence either to assassinate the chief minister or finalise their plans to. Thousands of people joined the funeral procession of Ishrat at Mumbra on 19 June amidst palpable tension and anguish. Earlier in the morning her mortal remains, accompanied by mother Shamima, relatives and friends, reached Mumbra. The Samajwadi (Socialist) party called for Mumbra to close as a mark of protest against the killing. Shamima said, "the police said IB officials had spotted my daughter on several occasions with Javed, one of the victims. If that was so, why did they not arrest her? Instead, they shot her dead. This proves that the police fabricated the entire story." This encounter has snowballed into a major national controversy. Many political parties allege that whenever Modi is in trouble he attracts assassins. The link is implicit to many between the tragic events of 15 June and Vajpayee's controversial statements two days earlier.
