Gujarat riots: Politicians may finally be exposed

A forensic team has been called in to investigate if politicians and policemen in Gujarat were in constant touch over mobile phones with the rioters during the communal violence in 2002.

The Gujarat government has given the names of two cyber crime experts from the state Directorate of Forensic Science to the Nanavati-Shah riot inquiry panel to examine the controversial CD.

The CD also contains the number of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet ministers, sources in the Commission said.

"The CD contains all mobile phone numbers from Ahmedabad and Godhra that were in use from February to March in 2002. What needs to be corroborated is whether the local politicians and also certain policemen were present at a certain place at a certain time and were in touch with each other or not," the source said.

Explaining the significance of this probe, a senior police official, who unearthed the CD matter and investigated it earlier, said, "If there are five witnesses who have said on oath that they saw a certain person at a certain place at a certain time then this could be corroborated by probing the contents of these phone records. The person under scrutiny cannot escape the evidence."

The Gujarat government has, however, expressed its doubts over the authenticity of the CD and mentioned this to the Commission.

Advocate Mukul Sinha of the Jansangarsh Manch, an NGO that raised the CD matter before the Commission said, "The contents of the CD need to be verified as there were many allegations that local politicians and policemen in the city and Godhra were in constant touch over their mobile phones with those leading rioting mobs.

"From the entire list of phone numbers, we have given a list of 46 people to the Commission whose names have been mentioned by several witnesses as those inciting violence or having a role in spreading communal violence. The list includes the name of Narendra Modi and the present Director General of Police (Gujarat) P C Pande," Sinha added.

The matter came to light when an IPS officer, Rahul Sharma, collected the entire list of phone calls made during that period from the cell phone companies and made it public.

Communal riots had erupted in many parts of Gujarat in 2002 after 59 kar sevaks were killed inside the S6 coach of the Sabarmati Express at the Godhra railway station on February 27 after it was attacked by a mob.