For 2002 post-Godhra riots, Modi refuses to apologise

Ahmedabad, July 26 : Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who had steadfastly declined to answer questions on his alleged role in the post-Godhra violence, has refused to apologise for the riots and instead would prefer to be hanged if found guilty.

“Whatever I had said at that time you can check that. In 2004, I had given an interview in which I had said why should I apologise. If my government had done this, I should be hanged in public in such a way that it remains a less the next 100 years so that nobody dares to do it (such a crime),” he has said in an interview published in Urdu weekly Nai Duniya.

Though much of what Modi has said had been said on earlier occasions, it is significant that he had given an interview to a Urdu weekly, edited by Shahid Siddiqui, a former MP who is now with Samajwadi Party.

He was asked a question whether he was prepared to apologise for the post-Godhra riots in which more than 1,000 people, majority of them Muslims, were killed like Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh apologised for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Siddiqui said today that it was free-wheeling chat by him with Modi. He said he told the Chief Minister’s office before the interview that he should be allowed to put all questions related to the 2002 violence and he should not quit in the middle.

He said the thought of interviewing Modi came to him when Salim Saab (Salman Khan’s father) suggested to him that there should always be a dialogue.

PTI