..VII. IMPUNITY IN THE AFTERMATH

Even as attacks continued to occur six weeks after the Godhra attacks, the Gujarat state administration was engaged in a massive cover-up of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad's extensive involvement. The state government's claims to have arrested 2,500 people in early March in connection to post-Godhra violence were undermined by reports claiming that no BJP, VHP, or Bajrang Dal activists were among those arrested. Police officials have either refused to name them in the police reports-FIRs-or under pressure from the state administration have booked some under less serious charges.²²² Many police officers who have pursued charges against leaders of the attacks on Muslims, or those who tried to maintain law and order during the attacks, have since been transferred. Muslims in the state have been denied equal protection of the law and continue to be arbitrarily detained and booked on false charges following combing operations in Muslim neighborhoods.  

Manipulation of Police Reports  
An attorney assisting victims filing police reports in Ahmedabad, who asked not to be identified, told Human Rights Watch that in many cases the police were misreporting statements in the First Information Reports (FIRs) and omitting the names of the accused. The National Human Rights Commission also expressed concern over allegations of "distorted or poorly recorded" FIRs (see below). The attorney told Human Rights Watch:  

People don't trust the local police. They are saying that all this happened in their presence. There have been some arrests and some of the police have tried to save people. When witnesses file complaints, the police enter their statements according to their preference. They don't file complaints properly. People are uneducated and the police don't show them the statement, they just get them to sign it. The police don't record statements properly. In some cases, they won't write the name of the accused. In one case, for example, seven people were identified but they didn't write their names. This area is covered by the Madhavpura police station but this is happening in all stations, also at the Sabarmati police station.²²⁹ 

The effect of these FIRs was made clear by advocate Bhushan Oza, a member of the Citizens' Initiative that has collected a large number of what are know as "omnibus FIRs," where the accused is identified only as "an unruly mob" or "a mob of 10,000." Oza told the Times of India: "You need to hold an identification parade based on the information given in the FIR.... The procedure has to be completed before taking a particular case to court. You can't identify an accused for the first time in the court. The law does not allow this and there are judgments to this effect based on the 1985 riots"²³¹ 

On April 24, 2002, India's National Commission for Women criticized the police in Gujarat for not registering cases of violence against women. Commission chairperson Purnima Advani stated that "the number of FIRs registered was much less than the incidents of violence against women reported to the NCW."²³² 

²²² Robin David and Leena Misra, "Legal experts fear manipulation of FIRs," Times of India, March 26, 2002.  

²²⁹ Human Rights Watch interview, attorney, Ahmedabad, March 22, 2002.  

²³⁰ "Police not naming names in FIRs," Times of India, March 26, 2002.  

²³¹ Robin David and Leena Misra,, "Many FIRs' but culprits go scot-free," Times of India, March 24, 2002.