Myth 1: 2,000 Muslims were killed in the Gujarat riots
Posted on May 22, 2008 - Filed Under 12-Concocted Lies and Myths by the media | 594 Comments
Fact: As per figures given by the Union Minister of State for Home Shriprakash Jaiswal, who belongs to the Congress Party, in Parliament on 11 May 2005, 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed in the riots, 2548 people were injured and 223 people were missing. This was in a WRITTEN REPLY to a question asked by a Congress member on the religion wise casualties in Gujarat after Godhra. The report placed the number of riot-affected widows at 919 and the number of children orphaned at 606. The UPA government gives these figures, and hence they themselves may be inflated. To read the Rajya Sabha records click:
http://164.100.47.5/EDAILYQUESTIONS/sessionno/204/uq11052005.pdf
http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=46538 or
http://news.indiainfo.com/2005/05/11/1105godhra-rs.html
Even Indian Muslims’ English newspaper Milli Gazette also reported this
http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2005/01-15June05-Print-Edition/011506200511.htm
BBC too reported the same.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4536199.stm
The editorials of the national English dailies, and the articles published from the freelancers on the newspapers’ editorial pages are nothing but a pack of lies, akin the autobiography of former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf, “In the Line of Fire”. Newspapers like The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, etc. continue to publish articles saying, “Win in Assembly elections of December 2002 does not whitewash Narendra Modi’s sins of the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 when 2000 innocent Muslims were butchered” or “The Gujarat pogrom of killing thousands of Muslims did not help the BJP in the long term” etc. etc.
All these numbers again came into the picture when Narendra Modi was denied a US diplomatic visa in March 2005 by the USA and his earlier tourist visa, issued in 1998 was revoked just one day before his scheduled visit to the USA. Why the USA took as many as three years after the Gujarat riots to revoke Modi’s earlier visa is not known.
But these numbers are nothing but a pack of lies. The number of Muslims killed in the post-Godhra riots is inflated and exaggerated to unimaginable levels. Let us see the interview given by the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to Aaj Tak’s Prabhu Chawla, excerpts of which were published in the weekly India Today, dated 4 November 2002
“Q – Your opponents call you ‘Jinnah of the Hindus’.
A- I am hearing this for the first time though I still dont consider you as an enemy.
Q- You are held responsible for the killing of 1,100 innocent people in the riots.
A- In our last interview, you said 900 people. Now you are saying 1,100. Are you adding all the people killed in other states like Maharashtra and Bengal to Gujarat’s account?(Narendra Modi is talking of the Solapur riots of 10 and 11 October 2002 in Maharashtra and other petty riots which occured long after Godhra and had nothing to do with Godhra and post-Godhra).
Q- So what is the correct toll?
A- There would have no riots in Gujarat if there had been no Godhra…
Q- Do you accept that you failed to provide security to the people of the state?
A- 98% of Gujarat would not have had peace if we had failed to fulfill our duties. We managed to control the riots in 72 hours…
Q- Why don’t you accept that Gujarat is being defamed because of Narendra Modi?
A- If that is true, give the people of Gujarat a chance to pronounce their verdict through elections.”
LINK: http://www.indiatoday.com/itoday/20021104/conf.shtml#co
As we see, the number of people killed in the riots jumped from 900 to 1100 after Narendra Modi’s previous interview, i.e. within 4 months! Now it has jumped from 900 to 2,000. May be after 10 years, at this rate it will jump to 10,000!Already it is being said that, “thousands of Muslims were killed in Gujarat” and “3,000 innocent Muslims were butchered in Gujarat”. The death of a single innocent person, whether Hindu or Muslim or belonging to any other religion, is highly unfortunate and cannot be justified. That more than 1,000 people were killed is highly unfortunate and reprehensible. But that cannot a justification to exaggerate and inflate the number of people killed to 2,000 or any higher figure.
What these lies have done to well-meaning people
It is generally believed, even in the Sangh Parivar, that the post-Godhra riots were one-sided. Even a correspondent of RSS weekly Organiser once believed the bluff that 2,000 Muslims were killed in the riots. He actually reported- “Over 2,000 Muslims were killed in Ahmedabad”.
Most leaders of BJP seem to be blatantly ignorant of the truth of the Gujarat riots. Whenever Congress leaders or anti-BJP journalists raise the issue of the Gujarat riots on TV, the BJP leaders generally fail to give befitting reply. They falter in speech. They merely try to point out that the Gujarati electorate gave a huge mandate to the BJP and to Narendra Modi in the December 2002 Gujarat Assembly polls, and mention the Godhra incident as a cause of the riots. None of them ever points out any instance of Muslim aggression, sufferings of the Hindus in the riots, police firing deaths, or the fact that only 60 places out of 18,600 saw riots. This is because of ignorance and blind belief on media lies.
After every terrorist attack, the national English media rationalizes this deed on grounds of the ‘Gujarat riots’. The Gujarat riots were the result of the Godhra massacre.That the English media justified Godhra (as a response to the Ramjanmabhoomi movement in Ayodhya), did not justify or even rationalize the post-Godhra riots (which were the direct result of Godhra) where Muslims were killed and ignored the killings of the Hindus, and it tried to and tries to de-link post-Godhra and Godhra. And it rationalizes and/ or justifies the (so-called) ‘reaction’ to the post-Godhra riots.
The very fact that some terrorists claim that they “plan to avenge the Gujarat riots” clearly shows the devastating consequences of the media lies. The media lies today about Gujarat riots being a ‘pogrom’ and instigates innocent Muslims to terrorism.
In March 2005, the Pakistan cricket team was on a tour to India. It refused to play a Test match in Ahmedabad on ‘political’ grounds, i.e. for ‘the killings of Muslims’ in that city. All this is clearly the result of stark lies concocted by the biased media, which it itself may have started to believe by now. All these lies and myths need to be thoroughly exposed.
That the UPA government, with Congress President and Italian-born and staunchly anti-BJP Sonia Gandhi as the UPA chief, and Communists as outside supporters, gave the figure of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus killed in the Gujarat riots inside Parliament is something worth pondering about. These figures themselves may well be exaggerated given as they are by a Congressman, who works under Sonia Gandhi.
India Today weekly reported in its issue dated 20 May 2002, when the riots had almost stopped that “Total dead- 972” (For details, see page 122). Out of these 972, India Today included 57 people killed in Godhra. If anyone sees the English newspapers of those days, i.e. between 10 to 21 May 2002, no riots took place in Gujarat in those 10 days at all, and the Army left Gujarat on 21 May. A maximum of 20 more deaths might have happened in Gujarat after that. The death toll in Gujarat riots would thus be 935.
I myself recall reading in Nagpur-based English daily The Hitavada that 936 people were killed in the Gujarat riots after the Army left Ahmedabad on 21 May 2002. The official figures before the missing were declared dead were 952. After missing were declared dead- the toll was revised to 1180.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090301/jsp/nation/story_10608005.jsp
Adding the UPA’s figures of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus, we have a total of 1044 people killed in the Gujarat riots, a 100 more. Hence, the true figures may well be 698 Muslims and 254 Hindus, a total of 952 people killed- before the missing were declared dead.
But let us, for argument’s sake, assume that the figures given by the UPA government are correct. Does that give anyone the reason to believe that more than 790 Muslims were killed in Gujarat? Why should the English dailies and the 24-hour news channels lie through the skin of their teeth that 2000 Muslims were killed in Gujarat? A total of 223 people are said to be missing. Out of them, how many are Hindus is also not told. The maximum number of people thus killed in Gujarat, assuming that all the missing are dead would thus amount to 1267. There is no scope for anyone in the world, including the human-rights organisations and the US-based religious freedom groups and the TV channels like NDTV and company to report that one more than 1267 people were killed in the Gujarat riots.
Despite this, Prafull Bidwai, a self-proclaimed secularist wrote in Nagpur-based English daily, The Hitavada’s Sunday magazine, Insight in July 2006, soon after the Mumbai blasts that killed 187 people in the city, that, “VHP, Bajrang Dal and the BJP butchered 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat”- ignoring Godhra completely. And he was not the only one. NDTV, mouthpiece of a political party, and that too the CPI (M), a Leftist party, reported a thousand times during the Lok Sabha elections of April- May 2004 that, “2000 Muslims were killed in Gujarat”.
2,000 is the number of Muslims who carried out the massacre and gruesome roasting alive of 59 Hindus-including 25 women and 15 children in Godhra. It is not the number of Muslims who were killed in the subsequent riots. There is no justification for violence and of even a single death, be it in Godhra or after Godhra. But why lie through the skin of your teeth that 2000 Muslims were killed when only 790 were killed? Who gains by these lies? And it is everybody’s duty to correct the figure. The point is, what should be reported is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The mentality of self-proclaimed secularists is to keep the number of Muslims who killed Hindus in Godhra as low as possible and the number of Hindus killed in that train as low as possible. Alok Tiwari, a self-styled secularist editor of The Hitavada wrote: “Just because 56 Hindus were killed in Godhra doesn’t give them the license to kill Muslims in Gujarat…” Burkha Dutt of NDTV tried to keep the number of Hindus as low as possible in 2002 in one her talk shows she said: “The karsewaks killed in Godhra- what’s the number 53 or 57…” The correct number is 59, the numbers given by self-proclaimed secularists reveals their attitude, and that attitude is to keep the numbers of Hindus killed in Godhra as low as possible.
And many writers have simply written: “‘A mob’ killed karsewaks in Godhra” instead of saying openly “2000 Muslims killed karsewaks in Godhra”. Kuldip Nayar in one his columns in 2002 said: “500 Muslims attacked the train in Godhra”. Others said 1,000- some said 1,500. The actual number is 2,000 as mentioned by Vir Sanghvi in The Hindustan Times on 28 February 2002 and in the report of the Justice Tewatia Committee. The number is not all that important. But what it shows is the mentality of trying to reduce Islam’s guilt and Hindus’ suffering as much as possible.
And it is this mentality which is responsible for them exaggerating the number of Muslims killed in the riots to as much as possible. When the total number of people killed in the riots- Hindu as well as Muslim- is 1180, they lie that 2,000 Muslims were killed in the riots just like former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf did in the United Nations in September 2002. Teesta Setalvad increased this number to 2,500 Muslims (as if not a single Hindu was killed) in one of her articles titled “What ails Gujarat” published in CPI(M) party weekly Peoples Democracy in its issue of 16 July 2006. And Tehelka reported in 2007 after its sting operation that 2,500 Muslims were killed in the first 3 days! This would imply that many more were killed in the next days of riots!!!
This reporting also exposes the reality of self-styled secularists- Hindu suffering should be ignored and kept as minimum as possible, Islam’s guilt should be reduced as much as possible while Muslims’ suffering should be increased as much as possible.
A must read article is on the role of the Gujarat Government in controlling violence in the riots:
http://www.gujaratriots.com/29/role-of-the-government-in-controlling-violence/
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594 Responses to “Myth 1: 2,000 Muslims were killed in the Gujarat riots”
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Pages: [60] 59 58 57 56 55 54 53 52 51 50 … 1 » Show All
March 23rd, 2012 at 4:28 PM
Some people are busy talking the Gujarat roits!
Think about the kashmiri pundits. They had to leave their motherland Why? What is their fault ? No one says about it , No one knows about it. The print Media does not write on it,on the ground that the image of the country will be destroyed .Even Vinod Dua / Barkha Dutt / Sardesai and many others does not have time to find out the truth as they are scared of being called RSS Supporter.
As evident from the present Vidhan Shabha Elections all the leaders are busy appeasisg the Muslims , none ever dared to care the country. One of the leader even prefered himself to be hanged rather than stop demanding the reservation quota for the Muslims .Do you remember Varun Gandhi’s speech of Pilibhit? .Do you remember the Media’s active participation.
These are the things of the past,now the time has come for everyone to think over again and vote NARENDRA MODI TO POWER
March 23rd, 2012 at 7:14 AM
Major news papers like The Times of India, the Hindu and other papers have beocme foreigner owned proeprties. The TV stations like NDTV has major shares owned by anti Hindu missionaries. These people want to reenact the role of east India company which gradually took over India in about 100 years. Now with the power they have in tv and press and with the help of vatican friendly madam in New delhi, India may come under the bible belt by 2050.(Pope’s predictions in New delhi), The nationalist forces inspired by RSS should start janata awawkening movement to save the nation. corrupt politicians have allowed the missionries to own billions of worth properties and land, they own numerous hospitals, schools and colleges and are converting our people every day increasing their vote bank. A day may come when people like Mulayam will form a govt with minority muslimsa and christian support and ruin India and India may again become like afrcia where there are clashes and wars between muslims and christians every day. will the people of India raise their voice and get united to save our dear mother land?
March 9th, 2012 at 7:24 PM
On the one hand the Supreme court bans the release of the Radia tapes to the public, which show the unholy nexus between some anti-national industrialists who are famed for exploiting both their own employees and the masses and the corrupt stalwarts of Western-managed TV media(who have boasted in the tapes of “fixing up” even a judge); on the other hand the respected and aged Mr. Sawant, chairman of the PCI and also ex-Justice of SC, pontificated about the (perverse and crazy) sanctity of “right of mediamen(?Western corporatist disinformation warrior goons) of access to public figures & persons holding public office”. This Sawant made those indefensible and perverse remarks after English -media hunchos had received a beating when they forcibly attempted to make unauthorised entry into a private estatate and tried to force UP chief minister Mayawati to “make a statement” (We all know how Barkha Dutt and gang try to put words into the mouth of invitees in Reality-Game-style “BIG FIGHT”-shows while shamelessly reserving the better part of the showtime for her own “Moderation.” Sawant does not seem to have the moral integrity to realise that in a civilised society, it is a grave transgression of one’s human rights to have him “Forced to express his opinion” about anything. There are guarantees to such effect in the Constitution of civilised countries. On what grounds can untruthful journalists the likes of B. Dutt and R. Sardesai claim “previlige of access” in respect of RADIA TAPES when it is known that as “opinion-moulders” for the Westernised Christian-convent-educated Elite they exercise considerable unhealthy influence (ala kingmakers) with potential to impact the life of millions of ordinary Indians. THE public has a right to know of their income sources, whether bonafide or illicit, as also all shady anti-people foreign/corporatist influences that might lurk beneath the veneer of altruism.
March 9th, 2012 at 2:39 PM
It is a well established fact that every accident,however small or big has a reason behind it. Let us try to find out the same by a nationwide survey from all over the copuntry as what was the reason behind the Gujrat roits. Electronic media (espically)should realize their responsibility . They should be fair to the countrymen . The TRP increases with the facts shown and not with the rumours .The fact will come out one or the other day .Patience is the best medicine.
Did anyone 7-8 years ago ever thought of Narendrabhai Modi to become the Prime Minister ?
Today 50% of the voters are saying YES,
After 7-8 months (100-20-10 =70%)will say YES and vote for him.
NEED NOT TO BOTHER FOR THESE 30%,WHO WILL NEVER VOTE FOR THE PROSPERITY OF THE NATION.
March 3rd, 2012 at 2:15 AM
The Supreme Court has proscribed the release of the Radia tapes into the public domain for mysterious reasons. These tapes are of paramaount public interest as they expose the tainted character and shady dealings of compulsive haters of Narendra Modi like Barkha Dutt & Rajdeep Sardesai, whose crafty & vicious “hate Modi”-campaigns are suspected to have been motivated by hatred. The Indian masses should not forsake the struggle to make these tapes public through legal means one day because the final arbiter in matters of justice is not some self-styled court but the sublime conscience of India’s 800 million Devata masses.
February 28th, 2012 at 1:03 PM
let god save the country from psedosecularists. they believe in igniting the hatrade among countrymen to rule for scams. performance of government is no criterion for them. infletion , which is direct outcome of curruption is fostered and life of general public has become pitiable.