Gujarat police take action against scribe?who reported digging of mass graves

AHMEDABAD — Human rights activists have taken exception to the Gujarat police’s move to question a television journalist in connection with the digging of mass graves of victims of 2002 riots in Panderwada village near Godhra in 2005, saying it amounted to intimidating the press.

By Mahesh Trivedi

Published: Mon 3 Jan 2011, 11:23 PM

Last updated: Wed 26 Aug 2020, 12:09 PM

Rahul Singh, who was then working for a TV channel in Gujarat, had reported the digging up of 21 bodies of riot victims.
Last week, a six-member team the Gujarat Police team went to his home in Bhopal in the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh with court summons. Rahul, who now works for a media house in New Delhi, was not at home and his father, N K Singh, a senior journalist, refused to receive the summons on behalf of his son.
The police have registered a case against those involved in the digging, saying they had tried to destroy evidence. Four people, including a former aide of rights activist Teesta Setalvad, have already been booked, arrested and questioned in the case.
While Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) general secretary Gautam Thakar said the police’s latest move amounted to intimidation and harassment, urging the police not to torment the journalist, Vadodara-based human rights activist J S Bandukwala said the state government was deliberately trying to fix journalists who exposed its misdeeds. A top police officer told Khaleej Times that the police only wanted to interrogate the scribe to find out who informed him about the grave digging and why he went to Panderwada, and what he did there.
The mass grave was dug up by a group in December 2005 and some relatives of the victims claimed they were not informed about it, which led the police to file a case against the men who organised the exhumation.
The police now say that the digging of graves had been done in a notified area and permission was not taken from them. But the families whose loved ones were missing after the Gujarat riots had no idea that the area was a notified one. The families whose members were missing contacted the media and the latter found that at least 21 bodies were piled upon each other. There were pieces of clothes on them, which showed the bodies had been dumped.
“The Gujarat government and its police are being vindictive against the TV reporters who covered the story and are trying to save their face after the exposes”, said high court advocate Mukul Sinha who has been offering legal aid to riot survivors.
He said that the police case against Rahul Singh was aimed at intimidating other journalists and feared arrests of more anti-police journalists.
The hounding of Rahul Singh comes on the heels of criminal proceedings being initiated against K K Shahina, a reporter with the weekly news magazine Tehelka, after she exposed the dubious prosecution of a prominent cleric and political figure on terrorism charges in BJP-ruled Karnataka.
mahesh@khaleejtimes.com