JUNE 8,
2007
Vyas: I was in charge of the train in Godhra…
TEHELKA:
Jaideepbhai told me…
Vyas: At
that time, people from Aaj Tak had come to me, and I told them this…
I said, look, my shoulders are not strong enough to carry the weight
of 59 bodies… With deep sorrow, I have to say that we must leave
behind those who came with us… We have 300 women with us, that
is why we must do this or else we would set all of Godhra on fire…
We are not wearing bangles… Anyone who calls himself a Hindu,
the young men who have come with us and all the rest in any corner of
the world, they must all listen… The Muslims have played a one-day
match with us… they have given us a target of 60… we have
to win this match at any cost, so don’t stop until you have made
600 runs… This is what I said that day… At that time, Deepak
Swaroop was there, the Range officer of Panchmahal, and he told me that
what I was doing was not right… that it would not have good consequences…
I said so much in the language Muslims use… meaning, I also used
some abusive language… Narendrabhai Modi, our chief minister,
started laughing… How he has cut them down… It’s because
of him that the Muslims from this side… I live in a Muslim area…
this house, this wall belongs to a Muslim… so is that… the
whole colony belongs to Muslims… Only this two-foot high door
belongs to a Hindu… I live here by dadagiri, by force…
TEHELKA:
Tell me one thing, you were there with Narendrabhai Modi that day, when
the train caught fire in Godhra… What was his first reaction?
Vyas: As
chief minister, Narendrabhai couldn’t say ‘Kill all the
Muslims’… I could say it publicly because I was from the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad… Pravinbhai Togadia can say it… But
he [Modi] can’t say it… But it’s like how we say it
in Gujarati, Aa khada kaan khada ]to turn a blind eye]…
meaning, he gave us a free run to do whatever we wanted since we were
already fed up with the Muslims… The police was with us…
Please understand what I’m trying to say — the police was
on our side, and so was the entire Hindu samaj… Bhai [Modi] was
careful about that… or else the police would have been on the
other side….
TEHELKA:
Yes, if it had been a Congress government…
Vyas:
No, what I am saying is… things would have gone the opposite way…
that’s why the Nanavati people… interviewed me thrice…
called me… recorded my statement… they wanted to prove that
the riots took place because of me… because I was in charge of
it… I am not one to be scared, let them do what they want…
TEHELKA:
When Godhra happened, how did the Hindus unite?
Vyas:
Take my case… My daughter- in-law… was brutally attacked…
acid was thrown on her, her whole face was burnt… She was hospitalized
for 15 days… Look at my house… the iron grills… they
tried to set it on fire but we also took revenge… we burnt nine
of their houses… How many?
TEHELKA:
Nine.
Vyas:
And we murdered four of them… that’s how we silenced them…
Whatever charges were framed against me… I am not guilty…
I proved that it was the police who fired first… we only fired
when the police started firing…
TEHELKA:
This has become your area now…
Vyas:
No, it is only because I am never afraid…
• •
•
Vyas:
When the Congress was in power, it was under [Madhavsinh] Solanki in
’85, at that time Hindus took a lot of abuse… communal riots
took place regularly for two years… the remote control was then
in the hands of the Muslims… Riots would happen whenever there
was some money in Muslim homes… they never happened between the
10th and 20th of the month… They’d get their salaries and
all on the 10th and that is when the riots used to happen… It
happened this way regularly, you can ask anyone…
• • •
Vyas: When we left here, we had 1,800 people with us…
Of them, 300 were women… We had bought tickets for 50 people…
the rest travelled in the name of Ram… This is what Laloo Yadav
was referring to when he asked what proof there was that all of them
were seated in the train… The reason we bought even those 50 tickets
was so that if some of the others were caught, we could get them out
of trouble and say why have you caught them, they have tickets…
When we were returning from Ayodhya… the train stops there for
only half an hour… it comes in from Faizabad… at that time,
the women were talking about the leaders having it easy, they could
walk as they pleased on the platform while the women had to get knocked
around in the crowd. So, I told them to… let the women occupy
the seats reserved for us and said we would travel in the general class…
We went to the general bogie and it was these unfortunate people who
died… meaning, it was the S-6 coach that was set ablaze…
the one where we had reserved seats…
• • •
Vyas: We fought there [in Godhra] too… because
the train… We took the women off the train… and we formed
a cordon around them… Later I said, what are you looking at, go
and kill them… So we set the mosque there on fire…
TEHELKA:
In Godhra?
Vyas:
Our people stabbed three men to death and we also burned down the garage
from where they got the oil cans… When the tyres there started
bursting… there were tyres there too… it made a noise like
a big bomb blast… That was when Deepak Swaroop called in the military
police from Baroda… He knew the matter was out of control…
He told me that we were doing wrong… I told him to go f**k his
mother… what wrong are we doing… can’t you see…
you bastard, aren’t you a Hindu… was your father a Muslim…
That’s how it was…
