Aug
27
Gavai Submits Affidavit on Army in 1984 Pogroms
August 27, 2004 | Comments Off on Gavai Submits Affidavit on Army in 1984 Pogroms
In his affidavit before the Nanavati Commission, also investigating the 1984 pogroms of Sikhs in India, then Lt. Gov PG Gavai blamed Rajiv Gandhi’s government for delaying the deployment of the Army, thus allowing the massacres to continue without interference:
P G Gavai has blamed the Rajiv Gandhi government for the delay in calling in the Army.
Not just this. In his affidavit filed to the Nanavati Commission last week, Gavai claims he underlined this same point in 1986 to the Ranganath Misra commission but it gave the Rajiv Government a clean chit and suppressed Gavai’s damning testimony.
Ironically, the Misra report did go on to admit that ‘‘at least 2,000 people’’ would not have been killed had the Army been called in the morning of November 1, the day after Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
That meeting, chaired by P C Alexander, then Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, was attended, among others, by then Home Minister P V Narasimha Rao and Army chief Gen A S Vaidya.
Gavai, who is based in Mumbai now, claims to have ‘‘stressed’’ the need to call the Army ‘‘at once, without waiting even for a moment.’’
Since ‘‘every one present at the meeting’’ agreed with his suggestion, Gavai expected immediate action. ‘‘Nonetheless, Dr Alexander ruled that the police commissioner and the Army authorities should meet in the police commissioner’s office at 5 pm,’’ Gavai’s affidavit says.
ENSAAF’s report, Twenty Years of Impunity: The November 1984 Pogroms of Sikhs in India, provides an analysis of the Misra Commission report, demonstrating its failure to accurately portray the material contained in the affidavits submitted to it. It also discusses the behavior of people cited in Gavai’s affidavit, such as Home Secretary MMK Wali.
PC Alexander responded to Gavai’s affidavit by denying the charges and stating that the Army was pressed into service immediately. The Nanavati Commission has decided to seek responses from P.C. Alexander, then cabinet secretary Rao Saheb Krishnaswamy, and then Home Secretary MMK Wali. Because the commission’s term elapses in November 2, it denied the request of the Carnage Justice Committee to issue summons to these persons. Tomorrow, the Commission will hold its last hearing:
The Nanavati Commission is holding its last public sitting tomorrow, when it is due to hear the counsel for Gavai and two Union ministers, Kamal Nath and Jagdish Tytler, who had been issued notices for alleged complicity.
The Commission will also hear arguments on an application filed by the CJC over two years ago, seeking withdrawal of the President’s gallantry medal from a senior police officer, Amod Kanth. Kanth had been honoured for arresting a Sikh family during the riots even though its members had said they fired from their own home in self defence.
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