Written by: Garima Mishra
3 min readPuneSep 26, 2016 03:43 AM IST
First published on: Sep 26, 2016 at 03:43 AM IST
The book talks about his experiences of witnessing the Gujarat riots as a top cop.
Former Director General of Police (DGP) of Gujarat R B Sreekumar, who was in the news for taking on the then Chief Minister of Gujarat and current Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the post-Godhra riots of 2002, released his book Gujarat Behind The Curtain in the city at Azam Campus on Sunday.
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In the book, he has alleged that Modi, as the Gujarat CM, had disallowed the police officials in performing their duties during 2002 riots. Sreekumar, who was the Additional DGP of Armed Units in Gujarat during Godhra incident and was the Intelligence DGP in 2002, said, “It is an attempt to see that constitutional values, spirit and ethos is sustained. I consider Gujarat carnage as a full scale re-enactment of 1984 riots. For the 1984 riots, we did punish the political executives or bureaucratic executives. The criminal justice system failed the people completely. It sent a wrong message in the society. That is why Gujarat riots happened and Congress as a political party benefited.”
Talking about what led him to writing Gujarat Behind The Curtain, he said, “When I realised that despite producing all the proof, nobody was ready to initiate an inquiry, I decided to write a book and bring facts to the people.”
Interestingly, it is the first formal launch of the book, which was first scheduled for December 2015 but the event was cancelled by the organisers due to the book’s controversial content. Although he completed writing the book in April 2013, it’s publication was delayed because two leading publishers refused to publish it.
An excerpt from the book reads, “On 27th February 2002 evening, Gujarat State Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had given a call for state-wide bandh as a mark of protest against Godhra killing of Hindus. Though, the call and observance of bandh were banned by the Kerala High Court, the state did not initiate action against organisers and enforcers of bandh. Though messages and instructions were sent to field officers to maintain law and order, Compulsory Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to be adopted by jurisdictional officers of police and executive magistracy (Collectors and Sub-Divisional Magistrates) to create an ambiance of peace and order were not implemented, particularly in 11 police administrative units (districts), where spine-chilling anti-minority massacre was enacted.”
The book talks about his experiences of witnessing the Gujarat riots as a top cop.
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