We Have No Orders to Save You - Human Rights Watch

The Naroda Patia Case
On February 28, 2002, at least sixty-five people were killed in Naroda Patia by a 5,000-strong mob that torched
the entire locality. Countless others sustained severe burns and other injuries. Women and girls were gang-raped
in public view before being hacked and burned to death. Homes were looted and burned while the community
mosque, the Noorani Masjid, was destroyed using exploding gas cylinders. The crimes in Naroda Patia were
among the most brutal in the state. An eyewitness to the murder of a six-year-old boy named Imran who testified
before the Citizens’ Tribunal described, for example, how “petrol instead of water was poured into [the boy’s]
mouth. A lit matchstick was then thrown inside his mouth and the child just blasted apart.” 39
At least six BJP workers, who are also VHP activists, were identified as participating in the massacre. FIRs were
registered against them but the police were instructed not to arrest them. One police officer told Indian Express,
an English daily, “It is politically incorrect to arrest them and we are under tremendous pressure not to act against
them.” 40 Maya Kodnani, a BJP MLA from Naroda, and Jaideep Patel, the Gujarat secretary general for the VHP,
were identified as ringleaders of the attacks. 41 There are numerous FIRs registered against each of them. Human
Rights Watch spoke to eyewitnesses who placed both Kodnani and Patel at the massacre site on February 28,
2002, leading the mobs. Several people who testified before the Citizens’ Tribunal were also eyewitnesses to
crimes in which Kodnani and Patel were implicated. One eyewitness noted that, “they were also instrumental in
encouraging other accused to commit violent sexual crimes.” 42 Their names, however, did not appear in the
preliminary chargesheet filed for the Naroda Patia case by the crime branch police in June 2002. Police officials
reportedly claimed that they could not find any evidence against them. As a result they were neither arrested nor
declared fugitives. 43
According to an attorney working with the Citizens’ Initiative, a collective of nongovernmental organizations:
Dr. Jaideep Patel and Dr. Maya Kodnani are both important political leaders who have been
elected on the BJP ticket during these elections. And this is one reason why, right from the
beginning the police has tried its best—maybe under political pressure—to ensure that no
statement or no complaint, FIR, which includes the names of Dr. Jaideep Patel or Dr. Maya
Kodnani are included in the chargesheet which is filed before the court, even though a number of
statements and complaints had gone to the police. In fact the Citizens’ Initiative itself had sent
some of the complaints to the commission of police by registered [mail] to have full proof
evidence, still their names are not included in the chargesheet. 44
Key witnesses who gave statements to voluntary organizations, or before the Citizens’ Tribunal, stating that Patel
and Kodnani were present during the Naroda Patia massacres have themselves been charged with crimes in an
apparent bid to silence them. On August 5, 2002, charges were filed against Bismillah Khan and eleven others,
all eyewitnesses to Kodnani and Patel’s participation in the Naroda massacre. 45 Their attorney explained the
suspicious nature of these charges to Human Rights Watch:
There is a complaint against both Jaideep Patel and Maya Kodnani by some people. Bismillah
Khan plus eleven others were witnesses but they have been charged with the February 20 [2002]
murder of an unidentified boy. None of their names were in the complaint for that case. Six
months after the February 20 attack there was a further statement accusing Bismillah Khan and
39 Concerned Citizens Tribunal, Crime Against Humanity, vol. I, p. 39.
40 Concerned Citizens Tribunal, Crime Against Humanity, vol. II, p. 52.
41 Manas Dasgupta, “Gujarat VHP leader named in FIR on Naroda incident,” The Hindu, March 19, 2002.
42 Concerned Citizens Tribunal, Crime Against Humanity, vol. II, p. 41.
43 Manas Dasgupta, “Chargesheets filed in Gulmarg Society and Naroda-Patiya massacre cases,” The Hindu, June 5, 2002.
44 Human Rights Watch interview with Citizens’ Initiative attorney (name withheld), Ahmedabad, January 2, 2003.
45 Teesta Setalvad, “Criminal State: A year after the state-sponsored genocide in Gujarat, justice for the victims remains a
distant goal,” Communalism Combat, February 2003 [online],
http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2003/feb03/investigation.html (retrieved May 18, 2003).
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 17 JULY 2003, Vol. 15, No. 3 (C)