23 November 2005

To: Shri Abdul Kalam
Honourable President
Republic of India

Subject: Petition for Public disclosure of the contents of the late President’s letter

Shri Abdul Kalam ji,

We the undersigned note with great concern that:

1. On 13th October, the government turned down the request of the Nanavati-Shah Commission to furnish a copy of the letters sent by the late President Shri KR Narayanan to the then Prime Minister Vajpayee in the wake of the genocide in Gujarat in 2002. According to press reports, the government has filed an affidavit before the Commission stating that the disclosure of the contents of these letters would “cause injury to the public interest and the public interest will suffer thereby”!
2. What the contents of the late President’s letters must be like can be understood from a press interview given by the late Shri Narayanan to a Malayalam journal. He is quoted as having said, “There was governmental and administrative support for the communal riots in Gujarat. I sent several letters to Prime Minister Vajpayee in this regard. I met him personally and talked to him directly, but Vajpayee did not do anything effective. I requested him to send the army to Gujarat and suppress the riots. … I feel there was a conspiracy involving the State and Central governments behind the Gujarat riots.”
   
   We the undersigned are of the opinion that:
   
3. Revealing the late President Narayanan’s letters to the public would establish beyond any shadow of doubt that the BJP governments in Gujarat and at the centre together organised the genocide that followed the Godhra incident.
4. The people of India are interested to ensure that the truth is established and those guilty of mass communal crimes are severely punished. Public interest demands that the government immediately cooperate with the Nanavati-Shah commission and place the contents of the Narayanan – Vajpayeee correspondence during the Gujarat genocide before the public.
5. We also demand that all the letters exchanged between the Gujarat and Central governments in Feb-April 2002, along with minutes of cabinet meetings in Gujarat and in New Delhi, relating to the Gujarat genocide must be placed before the Commission and the public.
6. We would like to further point out that the government is making a mockery of the “Right to
   Information Act, 2005” passed recently by Parliament and is suppressing information which
   will assist in pinpointing and punishing those guilty of the Gujarat genocide.

   Awaiting your speedy response in the public interest,

Signed,
Hosbet Suresh (Retd Justice) President, Lok Raj Sangathan
S. M. Daud (Retd. Justice), Vice President, Lok Raj Sangathan
Prakash Rao, Convenor, Lok Raj Sangathan, and
other signatories

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