Former Gujarat DGP R B Sreekumar has appealed to Chief Minister Narendra Modi to initiate "concrete" measures to ensure delivery of justice and provide genuine relief and rehabilitation to victims of the 2002 communal riots in accordance with the "grief" expressed by the BJP stalwart on the violence on his blog.
In his 10-page letter to Modi, Sreekumar also demanded that the state government withdraws all cases filed against him and IPS officers Sanjiv Bhatt and Rahul Sharma, to prove that expression of grief by Modi regarding 2002 riots is genuine.
"The unequivocal expression of deep pain and anguish by you about limitless human agony during 2002 protracted communal riots in Gujarat. Your thousand-word blog post has evoked widespread hope, optimism and expectation among riot victim survivors and government functionaries who are still persecuted and victimised for performing their mandatory duties diligently," he said.
Referring to Modi's expression that "I had to single handedly focus all the strength given to me by Almighty on the task of peace, justice and rehabilitation, burying the pain and agony I was personally wracked with", the former top cop said the ground reality remains "dismal".
"But the ground reality is dismal and frustrating because much remains to be done to ensure establishment and consolidation of durable peace, adequate social cohesion and genuinely intrinsic rehabilitation and resettlement of riot victim survivors in the pre-riot conditions," he said.
Modi, after a magistrate's court upheld clean chit given to him by the Supreme Court-appointed SIT over his alleged role in riots, had written a blog in which he, for the first time, expressed his grief over the riots.
"As on today, nearly 8,700 riot victims are forced to stay in the unhealthy ambiance, deprived of even standard basic facilities, normally extended to those below the poverty line by the government. Constitute a Special Task Force (STF) for identifying and properly rehabilitating riot victim survivors," Sreekumar said in the letter.
