The Truth: Gujarat 2002: Babu Bajrangi
Duration: 00:08:32; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 353.585; Saturation: 0.021; Lightness: 0.269; Volume: 0.180; Cuts per Minute: 3.860; Words per Minute: 128.193
Summary: The Truth is an investigative report based on Tehelka's sting operation on key sangh members who are seen describing the events and consequences of 2002 Gujrat pogrom.
Bajrangi: There is a distance of about half a kilometre between Naroda [Patiya] and Naroda Gaon… We did a lot at both places… must have butchered not less than… Then we dumped the corpses into a well…
At first, I didn’t talk [This was TEHELKA’s fourth meeting with him.] I thought… Many journalists and all kinds of people and come ask me if I was in the Patiya incident… I tell them I was not involved, I was quite far away admitted in a hospital…
TEHELKA: Tell us how it was all done… revolvers… cylinders…
Bajrangi: The cylinders were theirs [the Muslims’]… Whichever house we entered, we just grabbed the cylinder and fired at it, and, dhadak, they exploded… We had guns in any case…
I can’t tell you what a good time it was… But four of our activists died in it… No hearing took place even in that…
[TEHELKA: Please describe the area.]
Bajrangi: In Patiya, there is an ST [State Transport] workshop with a huge wall beside it; next to this wall, Patiya begins… Opposite Patiya, there is a masjid and beside it is a sprawling khadda…
That’s where we killed them all… At 7 o’clock, I called the home minister and also Jaideepbhai [Jaideep Patel, VHP general secretary] and told them how many people had been killed and said that things were now in their hands…
I don’t know if they did anything, though… At 2.30 in the morning, an FIR was lodged against me…
The FIR said I was there… the police commissioner even issued orders to shoot me at sight…
TEHELKA: Who, Narendrabhai?
Bajrangi: The commissioner ordered…
TEHELKA: At the pit, was oil… Those people had gathered there…
Bajrangi: It was a huge pit… You could enter it from one side but you couldn’t climb out at the other end… They were all there together…
They started clinging to each other… Even while they were dying, they told each other, you die too, what are you going to be saved for, you die too… so the number of deaths increased.
TEHELKA: Then people poured oil in…
Bajrangi: Oil and burning tyres…
TEHELKA: Where did the oil come from?
Bajrangi: Oh that… We had lots of material with us… we filled lots of jerrycans in advance… From the petrol pump, the night before… Petrol pump owners gave us petrol and diesel for free…
T: You systematically hacked down children, women,...
B: … didn’t spare anyone… they shouldn’t even be allowed to breed…
I say that even today… Whoever they are, women, children, whoever… Nothing to be done with them but cut them down. Thrash them, slash them, burn the bastards…
Hindus can be bad… Hindus can be bad, and I’m saying that because, as I see it, Hindus are as wicked as those people are… Many of them wasted time looting… Arrey, [the idea is] don’t keep them alive at all, after that everything is ours…
TEHELKA: And some people also raped…
Bajrangi: No, there were no rapes…
TEHELKA: One or two Chharas may have…
Bajrangi: If some Chharas took some women, that’s a different matter…
We were marching in groups… There was no place to rape anyone there…
Everyone was on a killing spree… we were killing, hacking… There were lanes where we had to face Muslims… there would be a confrontation, they’d fight back with all their strength…
The moment we’d killed a few, we’d move on… In this melée, if some girl was trying to run away and if a Chhara caught her, then that’s another matter…
That day, it was like what happened between Pakistan and India… There were bodies everywhere…
it was a sight to be seen, but it wasn’t something to be filmed, in case it got into someone’s hands…
There was a video-wala there, some mediawala, we set him on fire too… Lots of those miyas [Muslims] deceived us… They’d chant Jai Mata Di and get away… that happened too… they’d put tilaks on their foreheads and shout Jai Shri Ram, Jai Mata Di….
TEHELKA: Tell me how that SRPF [State Reserve Police Force] man saved people?
Bajrangi: There was just one Muslim… some big SRP man… Sayeed…
TEHELKA: He was an officer…
Bajrangi: Yes, he was… All this cutting and killing happened behind the SRP camp… The ones who weren’t in the pit, they ran and got into the SRP compound…
The SRP jawans there were driving them away… when the officer came in his vehicle and said take everyone inside… He was in command… an officer…
So, lots of people were saved this way… at least 500 were rescued… Otherwise would they have all gone too…
The officer was also fired at… He is also a witness against me…
TEHELKA: But then Narendrabhai promoted him and…
Bajrangi: Silenced him… So, there was good work done in Patiya. Today too I am fighting against Muslims and will continue to do so…
I have nothing to do with politics… What I say is this: the VHP is an organisation… a Hindu organisation… Our politics should be limited to killing Muslims, beating them up…
TEHELKA: How do you feel after you have killed Muslims…
Bajrangi: Maza aata hai na, saheb [I enjoy it]… I came back after I killed them them, called up the home minister and went to sleep…
I felt like Rana Pratap, that I had done something like Maharana Pratap… I’d heard stories about him, but that day I did what he did myself.
...Salem...
T: The day of the Patiya massacre, he was at Ayodhya / Delhi, or whatever you must know... The next day Narendrabhai came...
B: Narendrabhai came to Patiya, to keep a check on the commandos (?) and to excite people more (in the killing frenzy). Then he left.
The next day when it all started again, Narendrabhai had come specially for that.
He roamed all over Ahmedabad wherever Muslims live alongside Hindus. ...
T: Tell us who got him(you) released from jail...
I was released from jail by Narendrabhai. He changed the judge on the case. And the 'setting' Narendrabhai then did... is what got me out of jail.
The first judge was a strict/strange one. He said I'd get not one death sentence, but 4. Narendrabhai got rid of him.
The next one (judge), insisted I should be hung. Then the third. By now about 4.5 months had passed. Then Narendrabhai sent word to me to be patient, he was 'setting' things, enough time had passed.
Then he sent my file to a judge called (?), who let me go free. All jails were emptied. All of us were freed.
... Hindutva ... (?)
Bajrangi: Its written in my FIR- there was this pregnant woman, I slit her open, sisterfucker… Showed them what’s what… what kind of revenge we can take if our people are killed… I am no feeble rice-eater]
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