[Fwd: The myth and truth of Godhra]

may 5th

more on media and double standards, from arvind lavakare

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: The myth and truth of Godhra
Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 01:11:51 EDT
From:
To:
CC:

http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=129&page=17
*The myth and truth of Godhra
*/By Arvind Lavakare/

Since no ‘secularist’ or ‘liberal’ or ‘objective’ person ever challenged
the above sets of figures, some questions arise: Who killed 200-odd
Hindus so early in those riots? Was it the police or the Hindus
themselves? And what made those 40,000 Hindus rush to relief camps? Was
it fear of Hindu mob violence, rape, arson and murder?

Two recent ‘news briefs’ in print are critical evidence of a reality
that’s been totally ignored by our ‘liberals’ who have, for four years
running, gone on and on and on about the ‘genocide’ of Muslims in
Gujarat after the sudden inferno in the S-6 compartment of Sabarmati
Express had consumed 58 Hindus, including 26 women and 12 children,
returning home after performing kar seva at Ayodhya.

In its edition of March 19, 2006, The Sunday Express carried the
following report from Ahmedabad:

*“Post-Godhra riot case: 7 get lifer*
The city sessions court on Friday convicted seven people in a
post-Godhra riot case and sentenced them to life term for the murder of
35-year-old Mukesh Panchal, a resident of Lambha. He was attacked by the
accused and went missing on November 7, 2003 from Shah-e-Alam Darwaza.
His mutilated body was found near Chandoka Lake on November 11. One of
the seven accused—Javed Shaukat Ali—meanwhile managed to give the cops a
slip and fled from the court.”

In its edition of Wednesday, March 29, 2006 The Indian Express carried
the following report, also datelined Ahmedabad:

*“Nine get jail in post-Godhra riot case*
The city sessions court on Tuesday convicted nine accused in a
post-Godhra riot case. Additional Sessions Judge Sonia Gokani sentenced
Mushtaq alias Kanio Ahmed Sheikh to 10 years in jail for murder and
attempt to murder. Eight others were sentenced to 18 months in prison
for unlawful assembly, possessing weapons and rioting.”

Out of the five convictions so far in l’affaire Godhra, the above two
rip the blindfold on Godhra that the country was subjected to since
March 2002. Those two convictions conclusively prove that even as some
Hindus in Vadodra, Ahmedabad and a few other parts of Gujarat were
provoked into insane killing, arson and loot by the S-6 carnage, the
Muslims in that state were hardly the cattle hiding from the slaughter
house that they have been made out by the “secularists” in and outside
our national English media. Do you, for instance, recall reading about
the mutilation of Mukesh Panchal’s cadaver in any of the English print
media? Did you hear a sound byte about it on our TV?

Yes, despite all the media and the consequent political, propaganda
about the ‘genocide’ of Gujarat’s Muslims, the reality is that some of
that community were also engaged in murder, rioting and unlawful
assembly with arms in hand.

This trend was discernible to the objective person four years ago
itself. Thus, in its issue of April 28, 2002, The Times of India
reporter, Sanjay Pandey, told us that of the 726 people who had been
killed by then in the post-Godhra riots, 168 were Hindus. In its issue
of June 24, 2002, India Today carried an article saying that the
official figure of all people killed in Gujarat in the three months
following the S-6 massacre was 800, of which a quarter were Hindus. The
Union Home Ministry’s Annual Report 2002-03 said that about a third of
the total dead in the Godhra riots were Hindus. It also said that, at
one stage, 40,000 Hindus were in riot relief camps.

Since no ‘secularist’ or ‘liberal’ or ‘objective’ person ever challenged
the above sets of figures, some questions arise: Who killed 200-odd
Hindus so early in those riots? Was it the police or the Hindus
themselves? And what made those 40,000 Hindus rush to relief camps? Was
it fear of Hindu mob violence, rape, arson and murder?

More proof of the blindfold on Godhra came in 2005, when the UPA
coalition (comprising the ‘secular’ friends of Muslims) made a statement
in Parliament that 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims were killed in those riots.

/.... deleted
/