Misquoting To Save Advani
By Manoj Mitta
Indian Express
12 Otober, 2003Anju Gupta, an IPS officer, was barely two months into her job when she was asked to take charge of L K Advani’s security on December 6, 1992. Her testimony to the police, to the CBI and to the Liberhan Commission, is perhaps the most damning against Advani. So much so that the Centre has named her as the main witness against Advani. And BJP lawyers have, on record, pilloried her—even brought up the issue of her marriage to a Muslim IPS officer.
Certainly then, Gupta should have been the last witness any judge would quote to discharge Advani in the Babri Masjid demolition case. But exactly the opposite has happened.
She is, in fact, the first of the six witnesses Rae Bareli Magistrate V K Singh cites in favour of Advani and calls her testimony ‘‘ati mahatwapoorna’’ (crucially important). The other five were journalists, two of them from The Indian Express. But more of that later.Consider the allegations Gupta, who is currently on a UN assignment in Thailand, made against Advani:
• Accusing Advani of inciting kar sevaks from the dais, Gupta said: ‘‘Advani ke aate hi, mahaul garam ho gaya. Jaise hi Advani bolte gaye, mahaul garam hota gaya. (No sooner had Advani arrived than the situation became tense. And it worsened as he spoke.)
• Asserting that Advani appealed to kar sevaks to come down from the domes since the mosque was being demolished from inside, Gupta said: ‘‘I did not see any of these leaders making any effort to stop the demolition of the disputed structure. Advani was sad only about the fact that people were falling off the domes and dying.’’
• Alleging that Advani himself took part in the celebrations that went on over the demolition, she said: ‘‘When the first, second and third domes fell, Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Rithambara hugged each other and distributed sweets. They also hugged men. Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Rithambara expressed happiness by hugging Advani, Joshi and S C Dixit. After the domes fell, they congratulated each other.’’
Given all this and the fact that these statements are recorded by Rae Bareli magistrate in his 130-page order, how does he still use the same testimony to clear Advani? And rule that the case against him is based on ‘‘keval sandeh’’ (mere suspicion) and not ‘‘ghor sandeh’’ (grave suspicion)? He does that by selectively quoting three sentences from Gupta’s testimony while analysing the evidence. This is how:
• Anju Gupta said: ‘‘I saw some boys near Kuber Tola carrying different implements and moving towards the structure. Then Advani asked me what was happening inside the mosque...’’
The magistrate uses this to conclude that ‘‘Advani was unaware of the demolition of the disputed structure at the time it started.’’
Far from it. Gupta goes on to say in the same statement that Advani was only trying to find out what was happening ‘‘inside’’ the structure as the demolition from the top was anyway visible from the dais where the leaders were sitting.
• ‘‘I want to go to the site and ask people to come down,’’ Advani said so to Gupta, as recorded in her statement. The magistrate says that this ‘‘gives rise to a second view’’ on Advani’s conduct contrary to the prima facie allegation against him.
To buttress this claim, the magistrate selectively quotes the testimony of six journalists, two of them from this newspaper. Both Rakesh Sinha and Ganesh Swaminath (who has since left the newspaper) said that they heard Advani on the loud-speaker telling the kar sewaks to come down.
• What the magistrate glosses over is Gupta’s version of why Advani was doing that. Unlike the journalists, Gupta was on the dais with Advani. She said that he started appealing to kar sevaks to come down from the domes only after he learnt from her that the mosque was being demolished from below and that those on top were falling down and getting injured.
• ‘‘Advani asked me what was happening elsewhere and I told him I did not know anything.’’ The magistrate inferred from this quote of Gupta that Advani was ‘‘in the dark’’ about the demolition.
But Advani’s question appears in Gupta’s testimony immediately after she says that she could see ‘‘fire and smoke all around Ayodhya.’’ This was because kar sevaks had set fire to Muslim houses and other mosques in the holy town.
Advani was then trying to find out from Gupta, who was the ASP, Faizabad, if the violence had spread elsewhere, besides what they could see happening to Babri Masjid.