NEW DELHI, 10 May — Federal government is sending 2,000 anti-riot troopers and elite commandos to riot-hit Gujarat to help “supercop” K.P.S. Gill put down an eruption of sectarian violence that has claimed more than 900 lives, officials said yesterday.
Another 1,000 policemen from the northern state of Punjab are expected to reach Gujarat to prop up Gill’s reported plans to raise a non-partisan squad to stem the rioting of the past two months.
“Eight companies (2,000 soldiers) of the Central Reserve Police Force are being dispatched to Gujarat from various parts of the country,” a Home Ministry official in New Delhi said.
The official also said some 200 “Black Cat” commandos would leave soon for Gujarat to help Gill, who is credited with ending a Sikh separatist campaign in Punjab that claimed 50,000 lives in the 1980s.
The fresh deployments in Gujarat, where army contingents are already positioned, came amid reports by television networks of a public burning of a Muslim resident in the town of Vatwa and other sporadic violence late Wednesday night. Gujarat’s police department has been squarely blamed for playing a partisan role in the riots which have largely targetted Muslims.
The Indian government last week recalled “supercop” Gill from nine years of retirement and appointed him security advisor to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, with a brief to restore normality in the state where 100,000 Muslims are cowering in relief shelters.
The move stemmed from swelling international and domestic criticism of Modi as well as the central government for failing to end one of India’s worst outbreaks of sectarian violence since independence five decades ago.
Gill’s request for the help of Punjab police in Gujarat has been, however, turned down by the state government. The Punjab government issued a statement yesterday saying that since it had only one battalion in reserve with the state police permanently “committed” in areas adjoining Jammu and Kashmir, it could not spare its police force. The official note read: “Therefore, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has regretfully decided that no police force could be spared.”
Meanwhile, Gill’s moves have given jitters to the right-wing groups associated with the Sangh Parivar and the Gujarat government. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad Senior Vice President Acharya Giriraj Kishore said yesterday in New Delhi: “Gill’s appointment is objectionable. Are we creating a parallel authority in the state? What will be the position of the Director General of the Police in the state?”
BJP leaders are also irked by the possibility of police authorities taking strong action, under Gill’s supervision, against them for encouraging the Gujarat riots. Sources indicate that in 3,800 FIRs filed against rioters over the past two months, the majority of the accused are associated with the Sangh Parivar. These include BJP MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) Mayaben Kodnani, BJP Corporators Ashok Saheb and Vallabh Patel in Naroda Patia massacre; BJP MLA B. Khatri, BJP Corporator Kokabahi and Congress MLA Faruqhbhai Sheikh in Kalupur riots; BJP Corporator Nitin Patel in Naranpura violence; BJP Kheda district general secretary Rajesh in Kheda rioting; VHP state chief Jaideep Patel, Bajrang Dal leader Praduman Patel in Naroda Patia riots.
Besides, in a confidential report submitted to Gill, the police have accused the Gujarat political leaders of subverting the police and reducing them to a “pliant and subservient” force. The frustrated Gujarat police, in their report, have suggested drastic measures to ensure peace in future. Their report recommends that those booked for inciting communal violence or defiling places of worship should be barred from contesting elections. Gill received this report during the meeting he earlier held with the state Director General of Police K. Chakravarthi and Ahmedabad Police Commissioner PC Pandey.
“It seems he is still planning, because once he goes into action in Gujarat we won’t be surprised if he steps on some toes,” one source said of Gill’s law-and-order methods such as his controversial bullet-for-bullet policy.
Gill has described the situation in Gujarat as “exceedingly bad,” saying his first priority would be to “put an end to the violence and then try to bring the two communities together.
“Gujarat is an issue the whole nation is concerned with and on which the government has to deliver,” he said recently.
