AHMEDABAD, 24 April 2005 — A Gujarat bureaucrat had told a senior police officer to keep mum on the communal violence of 2002 according to a audio tape played on a TV news channel. The authencity of the secretly recorded tape has not been verified.

Dinesh Kapadia, who was undersecretary in the Home Department during the sectarian violence, has however denied making any such suggestion to Additional Director General of Police R.B. Sreekumar.

Sreekumar, who headed the State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) during the turbulent period, has approached the Central Administrative Tribunal after being superseded in a round of promotions.

In his affidavit, he told the tribunal that Chief Minister Narendra Modi and senior bureaucrats gave him “illegal” verbal instructions that included tapping telephones of Modi’s adversaries as well as “targeting minorities”.

The tape played on TV purportedly quotes Kapadia as saying that Sreekumar should not reveal whatever he knows to the official commission inquiring into the Gujarat sectarian violence that raged for almost three months.

“You know that nothing (meaningful) is going to come out of the commission. You should speak with Modi instead,” the official is heard saying.

The official suggested that Sreekumar could follow the example of P.C. Pandey, who was the city’s police commissioner during the violence: “Pandey did not divulge any details before the commission. He said he could not remember.”

In his responses, Sreekumar is heard saying that he was a citizen of India and would go by the constitution. He also mentions a case of violence in which seven people were burned alive in Halol town of Baroda district, about 120 km from here.

“I am not saying ... who did it, but the victims were innocent. Whoever did it could go to such inhuman limits.

“I may attack you because you are my enemy but that was not the case in this instance. Two children aged four and five were thrown into the fire. When they managed to save themselves, they were thrown back again.

“Police did not investigate the case properly. Their bones were found. The Forensic Science Laboratory noted that it was a case of homicide. But police did not investigate. Now, tell me who is the culprit?” Sreekumar asks on the tape.

While Sreekumar declined to comment, Kapadia, currently deputy secretary in the social justice and empowerment department, issued a statement denying having had any such conversation.