The Truth: Gujarat 2002: Ramesh Dave
Duration: 00:08:20; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 67.360; Saturation: 0.021; Lightness: 0.262; Volume: 0.158; Cuts per Minute: 5.754; Words per Minute: 100.942
Dave: Whatever happened [at Godhra], happened for the best… And, in any case, Rajendrabhai [Vyas] was in charge of the Godhra case…
TEHELKA: He was the incharge of the train…yes…
Dave: I was with him too as the deputy incharge…
TEHELKA: Were you on the train?
Dave: No, I didn’t go… I am a diabetic and so I stayed back… Then around 9.30, I got a call from there, informing me of what had happened…
TEHELKA: Rajendrabhai called you up?
Dave: Rajendrabhai called up… he asked me what now… I said don’t worry… I will reach Godhra by 12 o’clock… Then he said there was no need to come to Godhra… some other people were already on their way… but the situation was out of control there and it had to be handled… I told him not to worry… and then he started crying… Rajendrabhai… he said 60 of our people had died… that we were playing a one-day…
TEHELKA: He told me that too…
Dave: We have to play a one-day (cricket match). 600 have to be… I told him not to worry, whatever has to be done will be done by God’s grace… later on, the corpses were brought here. I also went there that night. The scene was…
TEHELKA: I saw the pictures… in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad office…
Dave: In the office… We went to the office at night… the atmosphere there was very disturbing… everybody had the same reaction… what all of them felt was that [we had taken it] for so many years… Narendrabhai gave us great support at that time…
Dave: This is Kandhariapur… Hindus are gradually decreasing here… Muslims are more in number…
TEHELKA: They are increasing…
Dave: This is our border… All the area behind this house is his [Abdul Latif ’s]… At the time of the Godhra massacre, rioting started here at around 11 o’clock… We fought here till the next 11 o’clock…
TEHELKA: Was there firing from their side too?
Dave: They did not… This time, everyone was on the Hindus’ side…
At that time, I was given charge of Madhopura… It is very nearby… there were almost 123 riot-related cases there… Of these, around 15 were under Section 302… which were handed over to me to take charge of.
What happened was, we targeted and killed all those who had been in our sights for the past 20-25 years.
Dave: We showed the horrific video we had shot [at Godhra] to people… What happens is… there’s a certain fury… A dormant volcano erupted all of a sudden.
Those people did suffer a lot of damage…
Our plan was to burn Godhra down to the ground, to burn all these Musalman-wusalmans.
But then, to get everyone together here to handle the situation.
TEHELKA: And all the VVIPs had also started visiting by then… Was there retaliation in Kalupur? Even Sonia Gandhi came...
Dave: Yes we took revenge… to a great extent… meaning zabardast.
TEHELKA: How many were killed?
Dave: Now approximately, here in the interiors, I’d say only around 60-70.
But the kind of revenge there was… What these people did in Kalupur and Dariyapur… they have three areas… four areas… Juhapura, Shahpur, Dariyapur and Kalupur…
What they would do is they’d riot all over the place, and then they would sneak back here to hide…
TEHELKA: I had such an open conversation that Hareshbhai told me… Hareshbhai Bhatt’s factory… how bombs were made in his cracker factory.
Dave: Yes they were made… here then… If we weren’t here, we would be outside… Ghanshyam Patel used to call up people and control everything...
TEHELKA: Did the Vishwa Hindu Parishad have any meeting the day Godhra happened? Was any strategy planned? Some common strategy must have been made by you people?
Dave: No, it happened but at that time, the atmosphere was also very volatile. It could have been used for the sangathan. The sangathan has grown because of that… there was a time when...
TEHELKA: No, like the Godhra massacre happened on the 27th… did our leaders, who were there in Ahmedabad that day, get in touch with each other and plan out some strategy?
Dave: It happened…
TEHELKA: Or was it that they couldn’t meet because of the curfew…
Dave: No even if curfew is imposed nowadays, we can go out. There are lanes that let you do that. And even if there aren’t any such, we set out on the roads themselves.
Meetings did happen… eight to ten meetings at various places… The strategy was that since we had to take revenge, we should show them at one go and then there would be peace for the next ten or so years…
D: Police... (???) After all the police were Hindu.
D: They say never to name them, but they're all... all involved. (?)
D: I shouldn't say (?)
D: Narendrabhai ...
TEHELKA: What was Narendra Modi’s reaction when he reached Godhra and when he returned?
Dave: In Godhra, he gave a very strong statement. He himself was in a rage, after all, he has been a swayamsevak with the Sangh right from childhood. His anger was such… he himself did not come out into the open then but the police and all had turned totally ineffective at that time.
Pad.ma requires JavaScript.
