Modi adopted use and abandon policy towards Gujarat's "lower caste" encounter cops: 'Gujarat Files' sting

"Gujarat Files" being launched at Conflictorium

By A Representative
Gujarat's top “encounter” cops never trusted their political leadership, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his chief minister in the state, even though they had to “fall in line” of the system, and carried out the “fake encounters”, allegedly to “save the country”.
This is one of the several admissions made by one of the top "encounter" cops, who happens to be a Dalit, in the best-seller book “Gujarat Files” by journalist Rana Ayyub, launched on Sunday evening in Ahmedabad at Conflictorium, a unique museum of conflict resolution in the old city area.
Speaking in the presence of well-known human rights lawyer late Mukul Sinha's wife Nirjhari Sinha, who launched the book, and Janvikas chairperson Gagan Sethi, the main brain behind Conflictorium, Ayyub said, she has been "approached" to file a petition in court based on the "evidence" she has gathered in the book.
“Gujarat Files” is a compilation of undercover stings of Gujarat government bureaucrats and cops, carried out by Ayyub, posing as Maithili Tyagi, an independent documentary filmmaker attached with the American Film Institute Conservatory, in 2010.
An interesting episodes is about the top cop, involved in the encounter of Ishrat Jehan in 2004, telling the “film maker” that those in power thought that cops “are used to being bound to their word and ready to fulfill their requirements”, but politicians, including Modi, are interested in just making a political capital out the whole thing.
The top cop adds, “Every government servant, whatever he does, works for the government. And then both the society and the government don’t recognize you.” Especially quoting the case of DG Vanzara, who has been the most controversial of all the encounter cops, spending several years in jail, the top cop says, “What Vanzara has done, [but] nobody stood by him. ”
When asked whether he thought that all the “lower caste” cops involved in fake encounter – including he (GL Singhal), Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian, NK Amin and JG Parmar, who worked “at the behest of the state” in whatever they did were a “use and abandon thing” for the ruling politicians, the top cop replies, “Oh yes, all of us. The government doesn’t think this.”
Answering another question, he says, “This has to be done to save the nation, to save the country.” At the same time, he adds, one has to do it because one is part of the system, and compromise with it: “System ke saath rehna hai to logon ko compromise karna padta hai.”

The top cop further says, “Whether it’s the Congress or the BJP, political parties are political parties. They will first see their benefit, under what circumstances they can extract something. In our case they are helping, but also trying to see what they will get or not get.”
Referring to Modi, the top cop says, “In 2007, just after the officers were arrested for the Sohrabuddin encounters, Sonia Gandhi was here and she called the officers Maut Ke Saudagar. After that Modi, went out shouting at every meeting ‘Maut ke saudagar (merchant of death)? Sohrabuddin kaun tha, usko maara toh achcha hua ke nahi hua (Who was Sohrabuddin, was it good or bad that he was killed)?’ And after that he got a thumping majority. See, he got what he wanted.”
The top cop underlines, Modi or other politicians do just one thing – just take political benefit, and that's all; this is what they did after “killing Muslims” during the riots, too, just as during the encounters: “Dekho inko sabka benefit lena hota hai, riots hue muslims ko maara, benefit liya, ispar bhi kiya.”
Especially suggesting that in all this Modi was the mastermind, the encounter cop says, “All the ministries that are there and the ministers...they are rubber stamps. All decisions are taken by the chief minister. Whatever decisions all the ministers make, they have to take his permission.”
Asked how did Modi manage to remain unscathed, the top cop says, this was because “he does not come in the picture directly. He gives orders to bureaucrats.” Worse, he adds, Modi did not even trust his home minister (HM) Amit Shah, who was arrested in the Ishrat Jehan case.
Asked whether Shah would ever “come back to the Home Department, the top cop replies in the negative, saying Modi was afraid of him, so popular he had become. “He won’t be able to, because CM ko usse dar lagta hai, kyunki woh home department mein bahut popular ho gaya tha. He (Shah) knows the weakness of the government, so the CM will not want any HM to know everything and be there. ”
Calling Modi an “opportunist” in this context, the top cop says, Modi was interested in only getting his work done: “Apna kaam nikaal liya, sab got his work done. ”
Suggesting the system did not support him also because he was a Dalit, he says, “I am Dalit but I can do everything like a Brahmin. I know my religion, much more than them, but people do not realize this. If I am born in a Dalit family, is it my fault?”, he asks, adding, “I have countered cases of terrorism for them... Yet... at times they will send me to do a job that can be done by constables.”

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