Nanavati panel’s clean chit for Modi-led Gujarat government in 2002 riots

The Nanavati Commission report on the 2002 Gujarat riots has given a clean chit to the state government led by then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

“There is no evidence to show that these attacks were either inspired or instigated or abated by any minister of the state,” the commission said in its report, which runs into over 1,500 pages in nine volumes.

The BJP said the report exposes “conspiracy by the Congress and certain NGOs” to defame Narendra Modi.

The report, which was tabled in the Gujarat assembly today five years after it was submitted to the then state government, recommends an inquiry and action against police officers accused of “not showing necessary competence and eagerness” to contain violence in the state.

“Police at some places were ineffective in controlling the mob,” the report said.

It said the police at some places were ineffective in controlling the mob because of their inadequate numbers or because they were not properly armed.

Retired Justices GT Nanavati and Akshay Mehta had in 2014 submitted their final report on the 2002 riots in which over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. Gujarat Home Minister Pradeepsinh Jadeja tabled the report in the House today.

As Gujarat Chief Minister, PM Modi had tasked the panel with investigating the riots that broke out following the burning of a train in Godhra, around 150 km from state capital Gandhinagar, on February 27 in which 59 Hindus were killed.

The first part of the report, submitted in the year 2008, covered the Godhra train burning. It concluded that the burning of two coaches of Sabarmati Express, in which Hindu karsevaks or volunteers were travelling, was a “planned conspiracy”.