'A video of BJP workers purportedly raising provocative slogans alluding to the 2002 Gujarat riots while taking out a rally in support of the Citizenship Amendment Act, has gone viral, prompting police to register a case. The rally was taken out at nearby Kuttiyadi on Monday, police said. In the video some BJP workers, carrying party flags are seen allegedly raising provocative slogans...'
'Amid the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests, Karnataka Minister for Kannada and Culture C.T. Ravi said that a ‘Godhra-like’ situation can arise if the majority “loses patience”. This follows former minister and Congress leader from Mangaluru, U.T. Khader's statement that Karnataka will burn if the Citizenship (Amendment) Act is implemented...'
'The February 2002 Sabarmati train fire, which killed 59 kar sevaks and triggered large-scale riots, was part of a "conspiracy" hatched by Congress's elected members from Godhra, according to a reference book on political history of Gujarat published by a state board... The book, titled ''Gujarat Ni Rajkiya Gatha'' (Political Saga of Gujarat) and published in December 2018, is edited by Bhavnaben Dave, a former BJP MP and current vice-chairperson of the board... "To destabilise a stable government, a conspiracy was hatched on February 27, 2002.
'On 5 July, a Supreme Court division bench led by the judge Arun Mishra overturned a 2011 judgment of the Gujarat high court. The high court had acquitted 12 men accused of murdering Haren Pandya, a former home minister of Gujarat, in 2003. In the acquittal, the court condemned the Central Bureau of Investigation’s probe into the case—the agency had linked Pandya’s murder to the killing of a Gujarat-based leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and said that the murders were an international conspiracy supposedly led by a Muslim cleric to spread terror among Hindus.
'In a nation known for its collective amnesia, it is important to restate names, characters and situations. Forgetting these can jeopardise free thought and the very idea of justice. One such name is Babubhai Patel alias Babu Bajrangi. He is a member of the Gujarat unit of the Bajrang Dal and his notoriety lies in the fact that he confessed (during a sting operation) to have actively participated in the killing of men, women and children in Naroda Patiya – an Ahmedabad neighbourhood witness to the worst rioting in February 2002, leading to the deaths of 97 people.
'The Gujarat high court on Friday acquitted former BJP minister Maya Kodnani in the Naroda Patiya massacre case. She had earlier been found guilty of conspiracy by a trial court in the massacre in which 97 Muslims were killed during the Gujarat riots...
'The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development is now acting on a BJP parliamentarian’s complaint against a JNU professor for comments made on TV in July. Kamal Mitra Chenoy, a professor of political science, had criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that he should have visited Palestine as well when he went to Israel. According to the Telegraph, Chenoy also referred to the Gujarat “genocide” and called the BJP “anti-Muslim” in his comments, which lasted less than four minutes.
'His 2003 visit to the UK was a nerve-racking and politically fraught affair, writes Satyabrata Pal, who was India’s Deputy High Commissioner in London at the time... Throughout 2002, after the Gujarat riots, the British media was up in arms, particularly since a family of Indian origin was among the Muslim victims. The Conservatives demanded that the Labour government live up to its claim that it ran an ethical foreign policy, Amnesty and other human rights organisations were on the warpath, the NRIs were split down the middle, and the bilateral relationship came under strain.
'Narendra Modi’s forthcoming visit to Britain is still weeks away but it has already become a subject of heated debate in Cambridge University with the vice-chancellor facing pressure to withdraw his invitation to the Indian prime minister to address the Senate, its most important academic body. A group of students and faculty members have written to the VC Leszek Borysiewicz protesting his decision arguing that by inviting him the university would be seen condoning “ongoing attacks on academic freedom and freedom of expression in India’’.
