• Home
• /
• World

Modi refuses to apologise for 2002 post-Godhra riots

AHMEDABAD — Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has said that he is ready to be hanged if he is found guilty in the 2002 communal riots but Congress leaders in Gujarat and New Delhi on Thursday dubbed the chief minister’s statement as ‘highly reprehensible and irresponsible’.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader who has often walked out of television shows when asked about his dubious role in the bloody Hindu-Muslim clashes also said in an interview to an Urdu weekly that if he was proved innocent, the media should apologise for tarnishing his image.

‘There is no question of apologising because if I have committed this crime, then I should not be forgiven, I should be hanged. And I should be hanged in such a way that people should learn a lesson for 100 years that nothing like this should happen’, he told Shahid Siddiqui, editor of Nayee Duniya.

He quickly added: ‘If I have not committed the crime, then the nation, and the media especially, should seek my forgiveness.”

Siddiqui said in the six-page story that he was not satisfied with Modi’s reply, adding that the chief minister tried to remove the bloody stain of the post-Godhra riots by giving the interview.

Reacting to Modi’s stunning statement, Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhwadia said that Modi was trying to influence the judiciary. He said that whatever Modi wanted to say, he should say in court. In New Delhi, federal Corporate Affairs Minister Dr M Veerappa Moily accused Modi of being insincere in making the ‘reprehensible and irresponsible’ statement.

Siddiqui had decided to interview Modi after a meeting in Mumbai with his critics Mahesh Bhatt and Salim Khan who had suggested that only a dialogue could be a way to resolve any issue. Siddiqui says he was not sure whether Modi would agree for the interview and that too with a pre-condition that he would have to answer all questions. But to his surprise, Modi agreed to discuss all issues with him. — mahesh@khaleejtimes.com