MALAYALAM
Expose on Gujarat riots
B. R. P. BHASKAR
GUJARAT — Irakalkkuvendi Oru Porattam: R.B.Sreekumar; DC Books, DC Kizhakemuri Edam, Good Shepherd, Kottayam-686001. Rs. 50.
FROM HIS flat in Ahmedabad, R.B. Sreekumar watched helplessly as flames leaped up from Muslim neighbourhoods on the night of February 28, 2002. He could not come to terms with the fact that he, an Additional Director General of Police in charge of armed battalions, had been reduced to a silent spectator. He decided to record in a diary all the information he could gather.
On February 27, when news of the death of a large number of karsevaks in a burning rail coach at Godhra came, the Director General of Police had asked the ADGP to keep his men ready to deal with any contingency. But he did not requisition their services when riots broke out. Sreekumar attributes the police inaction in the early stages of the communal flare-up to Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s fiat to officials not to intervene but let the Hindus give vent to their feelings. Braving threats and punitive measures, he placed the information at his disposal in two affidavits which he filed before an inquiry commission. He also made the material available to social activists who were pursuing the matter in various forums. It was Sreekumar’s decision to expose the misdeeds of politicians and officials which helped in bringing to book at least some of the perpetrators. Now that he is out of the police force, he has felt free to lay bare the seamy side of the political executive and the bureaucracy.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Book Review
