Arrest Modi, Advani immediately: Lalu

Patna, Oct 26: Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav today demanded immediate arrest of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and senior BJP Leader L K Advani while accusing them of planning mass murder during the 2002 post Godhra riots.

A day after weekly newsmagazine Tehelka aired a sting operation on the 2002 riots, claiming that the massacre of Muslims were carried out in full knowledge of Modi, Lalu said criminal cases be instituted against the two leaders and they be sent to jail immediately.

"The sting operation by Tehelka aptly christened operation 'Kalank' (disgrace) has exposed Modi's deep involvement in the post-Godhra Gujarat riots. People now know the real faces involved in the crime against humanity," the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader told reporters.

“Since Modi enjoys the patronage of Senior BJP Leader L K Advani, the opposition leader in the Lok Sabha, the latter cannot escape culpability for the mass murder," Lalu added.

Yesterday, Tehelka claimed that its investigation into 2002 post Godhra riots in Gujarat found that the massacre of Muslims were carried out in full knowledge and sanction of the Gujarat Chief Minister.

The six-month long "investigation brings confirmation that the Gujarat murder of Muslims was not a spontaneous swell of anger, but a planned genocide strategised and executed by top functionaries of the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the state authorities, with the knowledge and sanction of Chief Minister Narendra Modi," Tehelka claimed.

The magazine quoted a BJP MLA, who said that he was present at the meeting in which Modi gave them "three days' time to do whatever they wanted."

"He had given us three days time...to do whatever we could. He said he would not give us time after that...He said this openly," the news magazine quoted the MLA, as saying.

After three days "he (Modi) asked us to stop and everything came to a halt," Haresh Bhatt, the then national co-coordinator of the Bajrang Dal was quoted, as saying.

"It appears that bombs were manufactured in factories owned by senior Bajrang Dal and VHP activists. Arms were smuggled from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab, and then distributed to execution squads led by MLAs and senior members of the Sangh Parivar. Consignments of arms were not just smuggled in once, but 'there were tens and tens of them," Tehelka said in a press statement.

The news magazine also claims that elaborate legal subversion was done to save those accused for their role in the genocide. To help the foot soldiers, who actually raped, killed and looted, the strategists had constituted a panel of lawyers sympathetic to Hindu cause.

"To get me out on bail, Narendrabhai changed judges thrice," Tehelka quoted Babu Bajrangi, as saying.

ANI
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