Cop admits he got bodies of 13 Muslim victims burnt

Investigators have now arrested Sub-Inspector R J Patil for ‘‘destroying’’ evidence. When contacted by The Indian Express, Patil admitted that he got the ‘‘last rites’’ of the bodies done because no one came to claim them for three days—a version strongly denied by a survivor who says he saw his brother killed.

‘‘I approached the Sub-Inspector the day after the massacre, seeking my brother Imran’s body. But he kept dilly-dallying,’’ Idris Godawala told The Indian Express. ‘‘I approached him (Patil) again and again over the next two days, but the body was not handed over. Later, I was told the bodies were cremated,’’ he said.

Asked about the propriety of getting the bodies cremated when he was aware that they were Muslim victims, Patil declined to comment.

He claimed that his seniors, including Deputy Superintendent D H Parmar and Circle Inspector D M Brahmbhatt, were aware of the decision to burn the bodies. Both denied this.

Parmar said he wasn’t aware that the bodies were burnt and Brahmbhatt said he joined duty in Godhra only on March 6— after the bodies were burnt— and was in charge of the Jambughoda and Rajgadh Police Stations.

The facts of the case, as per police records and the FIR:

• On March 1, 2002, when the state was gripped by post-Godhra communal violence, 19 Muslims from three families fled Delol village in a van.

• They were waylaid by a Hindu mob near Ambika Society, a housing colony near the Kalol Referral Hospital, an hour’s drive from Vadodara. The van was burnt.

• Ten passengers were burnt alive near the hospital, one was hacked to death near a bus stand, and another burnt to death near a community health centre.

• Another Kalol resident, Imran Godawala, was stabbed to death. This was witnessed by his brother Idris, who was hiding in the nearby Rabbani Masjid.

• Sultana Shaikh, also in the van, fled into the fields nearby where she was allegedly raped. Her husband Feroz Sheikh was killed.

Patil recovered the bodies, sent them for inquest and post mortem. The post mortem report says the bodies were in ‘‘burnt or semi-burnt’’ condition.

• Patil made no attempt to send them for medical examination or DNA testing. Although the inquest mentions that some articles were recovered from the crime scenes, these were not sent for forensic examination.

• Instead, Patil filed a single FIR (36/2002) in which he showed himself as the complainant although Idris says he approached him the very next day. In the FIR, Patil claimed that a ‘‘mob of some 5,000 Hindus had clashed with one of 2,000 Muslims’’—survivors deny that it was a group clash.

• On March 3, 2002, after the post mortem, Patil had the bodies cremated on a riverbed behind the Mahadev temple in Kalol town.

• On April 13, 2002, he filed a chargesheet naming just two accused and added details of Sultana’s rape but did not attach details of her medical examination carried out in Vadodara and Godhra. None of the two accused is named by any of the survivors.

• Patil’s own reports show he made no effort to contact survivors or relatives after the massacre.

• Sultana, the woman who was allegedly raped, along with another resident of her village, Yunus Ismail Shaikh, approached the court seeking fresh investigation. Their reason: the FIR did not mention the people they said were the accused.

• Other survivors, too, sent affidavits to the district police chief and Patil, first on February 24, 2003, and then on March 27, 2003.

• There was no follow-up.

• Again, in August 2003, they filed an application for further investigation in a sessions court.

The wheels began to move in September 2003 when, as the riot cases started coming under the Supreme Court’s scrutiny, IPS officer Neerja Rao was put in charge of the Ambika Society case. Rao declined to give details but said that Patil had ‘‘clearly tampered with evidence and this was an attempt to help the accused.’’