The Hindu : 'Small group' responsible for Gujarat riots: Gill

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 14, 2002

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'Small group' responsible for Gujarat riots: Gill

By Our Diplomatic Correspondent

NEW DELHI Nov. 13. The former security adviser to the Gujarat Government, K.P.S. Gill, said today that a "small group'' of people was responsible for the communal carnage in Gujarat earlier this year.

``The number of people who went around killing people was not large,'' Mr. Gill said this evening at an Indo-French seminar on `Secularism and Tolerance in India and France'.

The former Punjab police chief said that what was striking about the riots in Gujarat was their sheer brutality. A point missed by many who went to the State after the riots was that 60 per cent of the killings took place in 10 or 12 incidents.

Mr. Gill took the view that the rioters were well financed and many of them lived in posh areas of Ahmedabad. Much of the looting that took place was by people who owned cars, he claimed.

Hinting that the carnage in Gujarat was organised, Mr. Gill, speaking in general terms, said that if the political establishment was impartial, riots would never take place.

Stating that the Akshardham incident was intended to create more riots, he pointed to the difference in the post-Godhra and post-Akshardham responses.

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