AHMEDABAD, 18 April 2005 — A senior Gujarat police officer challenged Chief Minister Narendra Modi to take a lie detector test after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongman denied his allegation that the state government acted partially during the 2002 communal riots. Gujarat Additional Director General (police reforms) R.B. Sreekumar, who was the head of the state intelligence bureau when the sectarian clashes broke out, has filed an affidavit before the Central Administration Tribunal (CAT) earlier this week, alleging that he was given “illegal” verbal instructions during the clashes.

Sreekumar was transferred out of the intelligence branch in September 2002 after he submitted a report on Modi’s utterances against the minorities during the Gaurav Yatra before the National Minorities Commission.

The affidavit claimed that P.K. Mishra, then principal secretary in the chief minister’s office, had verbally instructed Sreekumar to tap phones of the late state Home Minister Haren Pandya, central Textile Minister Shankarsinh Vaghela and others.

“I did not give any such instructions. Sreekumar’s allegations are based merely on his diaries. He is creating the impression that all senior bureaucrats except him are corrupt,” Mishra, who is on deputation to the central government, said in a statement here. Responding to Mishra’s statement, Anand Yagnik, Sreekumar’s advocate, said that the diaries were counter-signed and stamped by senior functionaries and were thus of semi-official nature.

“To prove the truth or otherwise of his affidavit, Sreekumar is ready to undergo a lie detector test and brain finger printing. Will Mishra and other senior bureaucrats take the test? Is Modi ready to take the test?” Yagnik asked.

Among the instructions that Sreekumar claims to have been given was ‘to target minorities during the riots and not collect intelligence information on leaders of the ruling BJP and its affiliates.

Sreekumar had approached the CAT with a petition that the state government and Modi were holding personal and professional bias against him and he was being denied due promotion to the rank of the director general of police. The CAT has issued notices to respondent parties, including Modi, which are returnable by May 9.