Depressing signals

The news from Gujarat continues to be depressing. Over two months after violence first convulsed the state, ambiguity persists about the state administration’s resolve to restore normalcy. At the time of writing, a relative calm has held in Ahmedabad and other parts of the state for the fourth successive day and the Rajkot police has seized another cache of swords and knives. But, at the same time, ACP (Crime) A.K. Surolia has reportedly been sent on deputation to the Border Security Force. Surolia’s transfer is disquieting. Reputed to be a strong-minded officer, he was supervising the investigation of the Naroda Patia and Gulbarg Society massacres. The cases had been handed over to the Crime Branch only about a fortnight ago; his transfer renders the probe headless at a very crucial moment. By interrupting the progress in two of the most macabre cases of violence that have been uncovered in the state, the government has sent out a disturbing message — that the Modi administration is still irresolute at best and dishonest in fact about punishing the guilty men of Gujarat. That it is still a very long road to justice for the survivors of the communal inferno that raged for so long in the state.

By all accounts, it was only the tremendous personal courage and dogged determination of one individual that resulted in the first arrest in the first rape case to be registered in Ahmedabad. As this paper has reported, Jannatbibi, witness to the rape and murder of women during the February 28 Naroda Patiya massacre, filed a complaint, submitted written statements, to Sonia Gandhi among others, and even travelled to Delhi to plead her case with several ministers and the President of India. Jannatbibi’s heroic odyssey bears sad testimony to the fact that in Modi’s dispensation, it requires inordinate grit to achieve what must surely be a citizen’s rightful entitlement in a democracy — the punishment of those who are guilty of commiting a crime. Will it take a similar Herculean effort to bring the guilty to book in the second case of rape and murder that has been belatedly registered in Ahmedabad? Or, given that the FIR registered by the Crime Branch does not even name the accused, has that question already been rendered superfluous to this case?

As the bloodletting is stemmed in Gujarat, and with public attention threatening to veer away, it is time to sound a warning: Much more needs to be done in Gujarat. Many more FIRs naming the culprits must be registered; police officers must be allowed the requisite space to conduct free and fair investigations; and the courts must deliver prompt justice. Relief and rehabilitation packages must be distributed fairly among the needy. But most of all, and for all these things to happen, the state needs an urgent change of political leadership.