Teesta Setalvad dug her heels in and fought for justice for 10 years. She talks to Shoma Chaudhury about the Naroda Patiya verdict and the personal cost of a struggle.
EDITED EXCERPTS FROM AN INTERVIEWWhat is the most significant gain in the verdict?
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| Teesta Setalvad |
The number of convictions — 32 — which is the highest ever and the fact that
the conviction has gone beyond the footsoldier and neighbourhood perpetrators to
the political masterminds and instigators; people who enjoyed the highest
political patronage.
Has this sent out
a message that justice can be had in Gujarat?
I feel it has sent out a very strong message, that the justice system can work
if certain preconditions are met. For example, if the apex court monitors the
case with attention — takes an interest in the appointments, how the case is
conducted, and makes sure it is not derailed. In this case there was a Special
Court appointed with a special judge. Witness protection was given to all
victims-witnesses by the central paramilitary forces. That is a very important
factor. Then, there is the day-to-day legal assistance we managed to provide to
the victims and eye-witnesses. These are very complex cases; the legal process
is not easy for a layperson to understand. It’s very important that you
exercise your right under section 24 (8) (2), which allows victims-witnesses to
have their own advocate. If all these pre-conditions are met, yes, a very
strong message is sent out that justice can be done. But, we can’t be glib
about it. It is rare to get a Supreme Court-monitored trial, get protection at
the highest level for victims and you incur the emotional and material cost of
providing for them legally.
Why did you get
involved?
My association with Gujarat goes back to 1998, when I started covering it as a
journalist. One had started foreseeing that something awful was building up. We
already had the ‘92-93 Bombay riots behind us and we had got into advocacy trying
to get the Srikrishna Committee report published. After the Gujarat riots, I
was so enraged, I said let’s see if we can fight and if this country can ever
give justice to victims. Citizens for Justice and Peace (CPJ) was formed in
April 2002 because we realised one needed support. Vijay Tendulkar was our
founder President, IM Kadri was on board; there was a bunch of others — Cyrus
Guzder, Rahul Bose, Alyque Padamsee, Ghulam Pesh Iman, Javed and myself. It’s
important to have such a group behind you so you are not entirely alone because
there are high emotional and mental costs. One had to lay oneself open to
several allegations, none of which were proven, yet they are floating around in
the public domain.
What do you make
of the SIT? In the Naroda Patiya case it has acted a certain way, in the Zakia
Jafri case, which claims a larger conspiracy involving Modi, it has behaved
completely differently.
Mayaben Kodnani had been named in almost 16 FIRs filed in the Naroda Patiya
police station in 2002. But these were dropped in May 2002 when the Gujarat
crime branch took over the investigations. Even after the SIT was constituted,
she was not charged. In 2009, we moved the Supreme Court saying the powerful
are not being punished. Perhaps, spurred by that, in April 2010, Mayaben was
first charged. So to cut a long story short, the SIT may have improved things
about 25-30 percent in terms of overall investigation, but fell far short of
100 percent improvement in investigations. In the Gulberg Society and Zakia Jafri
case they have been completely antagonistic to the victims. That’s a very
strange position for an investigating agency to take. Perhaps, the snag is that
those cases accuse Narendra Modi of a larger conspiracy. But the questions on
these positions are not going to go away. Now that Mayaben and Babu Bajrangi
have been convicted in this case, how is SIT going to defend its contradictory
positions in our protest petition? These two are also accused in our Zakia
case. So it is great for us.
What are some of the
major unanswered questions?
There are so many. Why was the critical evidence produced by senior Gujarat
policemen like Rahul Sharma and RB Sreekumar not produced in court in time? If
the Rahul Sharma CD (with call records of those fatal days) had been investigated
by the CBI in 2006, and authenticated, it would have produced so much material.
But the analysis was left to NGOs. First Jan Sangharsh Manch did some of the
analysis; then we filled the gaps when we found the phone records of Modi and
others have not been examined.
What did Modi’s
phone record analysis suggest?
We analysed his residence number, his office number, the Chief Minister’s
Office, the officials around. These point to many lines of inquiry that should
be pursued. For example, between 12 noon and 3 pm on 28 February, the day
Gulberg Society and Naroda Patiya were burning, then DGP, PC Pande, strangely
enough, did not get out of his room, which was just half-a-kilometer from both
the areas. Not only did he fail to go out and oversee the crisis, he received
15 phone calls from the CM’s office in this time. Any investigating agency
should have asked, what these calls are about? Either they were telling you to
do your job, in which case, why was he not doing it. Or they were telling you
not to do your job. But there is a conspicuous silence in both the SIT and the
court in not asking Modi, Pande or the CMO officials this question. These are
the kind of gross lacunae in the judicial system and investigative agency. We
have had to push all the way, on every issue. And every time you push, it means
opening yourself to further harassment and allegations.
What role did
TEHELKA’s sting investigation – Operation Kalank — play in securing justice in
the Naroda Patiya case?
Operation Kalank played a huge role. In 2007, when the investigation was made
public, it shocked everybody. The Zakia Jafri matter was waiting deliverance in
the Gujarat High Court and we went immediately, through an affidavit of Zakia
apa, asking the judge to order an investigation and take Operation Kalank into
consideration. He rejected the application. We took it to the Supreme Court but
even it did not take serious note at first. I was very worried, so we went to
the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and they passed a full bench order,
on my application, ordering a CBI inquiry into the TEHELKA tapes. The Gujarat
government resisted saying they can’t do this. But, after studying it legally,
Justice Rajendra Babu, who was the Chairperson, quoted from all the books to
say that the NHRC had the power to appoint the CBI. Because of that step, the
TEHELKA tapes got authenticated. Had the tapes come directly to Raghavan’s SIT,
it may have got subverted.
I think for the first time in the
history of communal violence, we have had this kind of material being made
available. You did not have it in Bhagalpur; you did not have it during the
Sikh riots of 1984; you did not have it in Bombay ’92-93. But in the Gujarat
case, we had all these insider accounts — Rahul Sharma’s CD of missing call
records during the riots; RB Sreekumar’s affidavit and the extremely valuable
corroborative material in the TEHELKA tapes. Every criminal lawyer I spoke to
said the TEHELKA investigation amounted to extra-judicial legal confessions. It
cannot be the primary evidence but if you already have evidence of a person’s
involvement, once you have authenticated the tapes, this is the strongest
corroboration you can find. But instead of welcoming this material, what has
the SIT done?
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They have tried to discredit Sreekumar
by saying he is a motivated officer who spoke up only because he was denied a promotion.
This is factually not correct because his first two affidavits were filed
before the promotion issue came up. It is these that contain all the really
incriminating evidence and State Intelligence Bureau data. Only his opinions
come in the third and fourth affidavit. But Raghavan has quibbled endlessly
over whether his register is genuine.
With TEHELKA too, they have taken
peculiar and contradictory positions. In the Naroda Patiya case, they have
admitted the tapes and you have a 120-page deposition by Ashish Khetan which is
very valuable. But in the Zakia Jafri case, where Narendra Modi is accused
number one, you find the evidence not valuable and motivated. It does not make
sense to any rational person. And the only reason we are able to track and
react to all these contradictions is because we are involved in all the cases.
But it makes you crazy.
What has been the
most hostile aspect of this process of seeking justice?
The most hostile aspect is that it becomes a very lonely battle. Everyone in our
group is superb but it is still very, very isolating. You get lambasted with
falsehoods. It would be hugely strengthening if there was a larger community to
sustain the fight. One knows there are good people everywhere who are really
appreciating what you are doing, but very few want to take on the system
themselves and get into trouble. But you can only take on a system when you
engage with it, and when you engage with the system, you risk yourself the
most. The system works to tire you out; not give you justice. If you have grit
and are lucky, you survive. If you are not lucky, you won’t.
The allegation that I tutored
witnesses, that whole scandal about our former employee Rais Khan — all of it
has been held baseless by a Gujarat court, but you still have these silly
Youtubes floating all over the place. I’ve just stopped answering questions on
it. If people really want to find out the truth, they’ll get there. But I don’t
know if I can ever do all of this again. The cost is very high. You need to tell
yourself that you’ll dedicate 10-20 years of your life to just one thing. That
is a tough one. You are just not normal anymore.
Shoma Chaudhury is Managing Editor, Tehelka.
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