The arrest of a high ranking Gujarat police officer K.G. Erda, by Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by Supreme Court of India, to investigate 10 most heinous mass killings during Gujarat carnage 2002, is being regarded as a milestone on the road to justice for the victims of Gujarat. Mr. Erda was posted as senior Police Inspector in-charge of Meghani Nagar, Ahmedabad during the infamous state-abated massacre of innocents, which made India to bow its head in shame before the whole world.
Mr. Erda has been arrested in connection with the mob attack on the Gulberg Society in Chamanpura where more than 40 people were mercilessly massacred. The SIT has alleged that he was responsible for abetment, destruction of evidence and for allegedly framing incorrect records and for preparing documents with the intent of protecting the killers and arsonists. The charges are very serious and speaks volumes about the spread of communal poison in the ranks of police force, which has the onerous responsibility of protecting the life and limb of common citizens. The SIT spokesman has asserted that they took the decision of arresting him after collecting clinching evidence of not only his dereliction of duty but also falsification of records.
On February 28, 2002 the frenzied mobs maddened by the propaganda of VHP, Bajrang Dal and their cohorts were gathering in tens of thousands. P.C. Pandey was the then Commissioner of Police of Ahmedabad. It was under his very nose that several massacres were enacted in the capital of BJP-ruled Gujarat.
The report of Concerned Citizens Tribunal headed by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer has graphically given the details of disturbed situation and dereliction of duty by police department and other wings of administration. P.C. Pandey had personally visited the Gulberg Society yet he did not do anything to save the victims. The report says that the attackers pulled the babies out with the men in Gulberg Society, then poured petrol and burned them alive. The police just stood back and watched. Times of India, March 2, 2002 reports that when questioned about this inhuman attitude of police force, Mr. Pandey shrugged and said, “We were outnumbered.” Most of the people in Gulberg Society were cut into pieces and burnt alive.
Ehsan Jefery, former Congress MP, was caught, stripped, paraded naked and asked to say “Vande Mataram” and “Jai Sriram”. When he refused, his fingers were chopped off and then his hands and feet were chopped off. Then he was dragged, a forklike instrument clutching his neck, down the road before being thrown into fire. Even his dead body or body parts were not found. Along with him his three brothers and two nephews also were hacked to death. This naked death of dance raged in locality after locality. To quote the words of Supreme Court, “Nero was fiddling while Gujarat was burning.”
The recent events indicate that nemesis for the culprits of Gujarat is near hand. Reportedly there is great panic in the higher ranks of Gujarat police. To restore the confidence of victims of India’s worst carnage and reassure all justice-loving people, the Supreme Court and civil society must work ceaselessly so that the investigation goes to its logical end and every killer, murderer, rapist, and arsonist is booked and punished. Those people and the political party who claim to be the real secularists and dub others pseudo-secularists should take serious note of the change in the situation and remember the old adage that ‘mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small’.