Lok Sabha Debates
Need To Implement The Recommendations Made By Citizens Tribunal On Gujarat. on 10 December, 2002
NT> Title: Need to implement the recommendations made by Citizens Tribunal on Gujarat.
SHRI G.M. BANATWALLA (PONNANI): Mr. Speaker, Sir, I rise to emphasise on the Government the need to take cognisance of and to act according to the observations and the recommendations of the nine-member Concerned Citizens Tribunal on Gujarat carnage. This Tribunal was headed by the retired Supreme Court Judge, Justice Krishna Iyer. It included several judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court of Mumbai and even an ex-Director-General of Police of Tripura.
13.00 hrs. Sir, the report has made several recommendations. It has recommended that we must have a genocide law in accordance with the United Nations’ Convention on Genocide. This report has recommended that we should have a standing National Crimes Tribunal to deal with large-scale violence. This report has recommended that the Chief Minister of Gujarat be prosecuted for several crimes including the crime of genocide and crime against humanity. Some of his ministerial colleagues have also to be so prosecuted and so tried. This report has clearly and categorically put the entire blame for the genocide in Gujarat on the Chief Minister of Gujarat and has called for his prosecution and his being brought to book.
It is important to know that the report has said that the carnage was planned at six levels, namely, physical destruction of a part of the community; economic destruction; cultural and religious destruction; sexual violence and rape of a number of women of a particular community; resistance to rehabilitation; and a publicly declared desire to physically and morally destroy the Muslim community of Gujarat, backed by the Chief Minister. The report has clearly said:
"The Chief Minister connived and facilitated carnages at several places. The Government transferred senior police officers while erring police officers were protected. The Government also made sure that BJP leaders or workers who were named by the victims were not held."
It is necessary that such a respectable report of a tribunal consisting of High Court and Supreme Court Judges and others must be taken cognisance of and strict action taken according to its observations.