October 26, 2007	Friday	Shawwal 13, 1428

NEW DELHI, Oct 25: Horrific details of Gujarat’s anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002 were shown on TV for the first time on Thursday following a sting operation by the Tehelka news magazine.

Gut-churning details of how a liberal Muslim poet was cut into pieces and burnt along with dozens others in a posh residential colony, or how a foetus was pulled out from the disembowelled Muslim mother’s womb.

The carnage was carried out with the state chief minister’s protection according to some of the alleged perpetrators interviewed.

Asked if he had the support of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, one self-confessed mob leader said Mr Modi “had made everything all right, otherwise who would have had the strength... It was his hand all the way... If he’d told the police to do differently, they would have f….d us.... they could have... they had full control…”

In the interview before a TV camera the man known as Babu Bajrangi, a Hindutva leader said he was in touch with the chief minister during his days in hiding: “If Narendrabhai comes to meet me, he’ll be in deep trouble… I didn’t expect to see him… Even today, I don’t expect it…Marad aadmi hai (he’s a real man), Narendrabhai… If he were to tell me to tie a bomb to myself and jump... it wouldn’t take even a second…

I could sling a bomb around me and jump wherever I was asked to… for Hindus…”

Bajrangi was one of several Hindutva activists interviewed by Tehelka journalist Ashish Khetan.

He said had Mr Modi not helped the mob, by giving them three days to finish the job, the massacres “wouldn’t have happened. Would’ve been very difficult.”

Mr Modi transferred judges three times to enable Mr Bajrangi to get bail, he said.

“Narendrabhai got me out of jail…… He kept on changing judges…. He set it up so as to ensure my release, otherwise I wouldn’t have been out yet... The first judge was one Dholakiaji... He said Babu Bajrangi should be hanged — not once, but four-five times, and he flung the file aside... Then came another who stopped just short of saying I should be hanged… Then there was a third one… By then, four-and-a-half months had elapsed in jail; then Narendrabhai sent me a message... saying he would find a way out... Next he posted a judge named Akshay Mehta… He never even looked at the file or anything…. He just said (bail was) granted… And we were all out... We were free….. For this, I believe in God… We are ready to die for Hindutva...”

It was not clear how or why Aaj Tak TV channel, which had supported Hindutva ideologues in the past (its parent magazine India Today had distributed Mr Modi’s election CDs with its editions) found it worthwhile to show the expose. State elections in Gujarat are due soon.