NEW DELHI, 13 September 2003 — The Supreme Court yesterday attacked the government of Gujarat, saying it had no faith that the western Indian state would bring Hindu rioters to book for last year’s carnage of minority Muslims.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice V.N. Khare slammed state Chief Minister Narendra Modi and described as an “eyewash” the legal steps he had taken against the fanatic killers.
“I have no faith left in the prosecution and the Gujarat government. You have to protect people and punish the guilty. What else is “Rajdharma” (government duty)?” Khare asked.
“You quit if you cannot prosecute the guilty. Democracy does not mean you will not prosecute anyone,” he said.
The court was hearing appeals from India’s autonomous National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and 17-year-old Zaheera Sheikh to reopen the trial of 21 people acquitted for the torching of a bakery in Gujarat.
Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian People’s Party) also occupies the federal office in New Delhi.
The court told the provincial government to extend protection to Sheikh, who fled Gujarat and now seeks justice for her father and his 11 Muslim workers who were burned to death in the Best Bakery by Hindu rioters.
It also ordered Gujarat’s chief civil servant and police chief to visit the court on Sept. 19 and offer their version of events.
The 21 men were acquitted in July by a local court after Sheikh and 72 other witnesses retracted their incriminating testimony but later the girl said that she lied in court because of death threats allegedly from BJP goons.
Modi’s government on Aug. 7 challenged the acquittals in Gujarat’s high court, but the step is widely seen as a pre-emptive measure to side-step flak from the Supreme Court.
Chief judge Khare said he is not easily fooled.
“It is just an eyewash and nothing else. We will not be silent spectators. We will act if the state keeps silent,” he said.
Khare suggested that Modi set up a nonpartisan agency to prosecute those guilty for the bakery carnage and others with blood on their hands.
The harsh words of the court appeared to have little affect on India’s ruling BJP which said Modi will not step down.
“There is no need for Modi to resign... The Gujarat government would take note of the observations made by the apex court and act accordingly,” BJP President Venkaiah Naidu said.
Naidu also argued that the statements of the three-judge bench did not show the BJP in poor light.
“There is no embarrassment at all. The Supreme Court has made some observations and we will have to examine it...,” he said as India’s main opposition Congress party demanded the imposition of direct federal rule in Gujarat.
“These observations are unprecedented in the annals of independent India. Something drastic, therefore, needs to be done,” Congress spokesman Jaipal Reddy told a news conference.
“The court’s observations are a resounding confirmation of the grave charges leveled by the NHRC about the deliberate subversion and perversion of rule of law by the rulers in Gujarat,” the spokesman said.
“The Prime Minister (Atal Behari Vajpayee) should follow his own duties and impose presidential rule (because) the government of India cannot be and should not be a mute witness and a passive spectator to the goings on in Gujarat,” he said.
The BJP has been accused by rights groups of turning a blind eye to the sectarian violence that raged for months and claimed the lives of 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, in Gujarat.
The riots erupted in February 2002 after a mob, believed to be Muslims, torched a train carrying Hindus, killing 59 of them.
