Hinduphobic professor Audrey Truschke of Rutgers University in the USA, who keeps spreading fake news against Hindus and against India, has done it again. But this time she posted a claim on Twitter which has been proven as a lie long ago. On November 26, she posted a tweet saying, “In 2002, Modi oversaw a massacre of Muslims in Gujarat. They burnt shops, cut open the bellies of pregnant women, raped, and killed thousands.”
She further claimed that BJP is “celebrating those horrors”, citing a report that misquoted home minister Amit Shah’s speech yesterday in Gujarat.
In the line “In 2002, Modi oversaw a massacre of Muslims in Gujarat. They burnt shops, cut open the bellies of pregnant women, raped, and killed thousands” that Audrey Truschke posted, there are multiple lies, and they have been thoroughly debunked after by probe agencies and the courts, including the highest court of India.
False claim about the belly of a pregnant woman cut open
The most worrisome claim is that the bellies of pregnant women were cut during the 2002 Gujarat riots by Hindus. This comes from the claim that during the riots triggered by the horrific Godhra train massacre, a pregnant Muslim woman’s womb was ripped open and the foetus was pulled out using a sword by a Hindu mob. The alleged attack on Kausar Bano took place at Naroda Patiya in Ahmedabad on 28th February 2002, a day after the Godhra attack.
While the incident at the Naroda Patiya was one of the major incidents of the 2002 Gujarat riots where Muslims were attacked, the allegations of pregnant Kausar Bano’s belly cut and her foetus being pulled out by the rioters were completely false. The allegation was first made by Kausar Bano’s sister in Saira Bano, and there were several versions of how it happened. Some reports said the foetus was slaughtered with the sword, and in some versions, the foetus was swung on the point of the sword and then thrown into a fire.
Oped articles attacking BJP and Modi over the Gujarat riots keep mentioning this ‘incident’, but the fact is, it was a false claim. Kausar Bano did die during the riots, but the rioters didn’t cut her belly open and didn’t pull the foetus out. Dr J S Kanoria, who conducted the post-mortem on the woman’s body on March 1, a day after she died, had said in the court that the foetus was intact in the womb of Bano.
The doctor had submitted medical evidence in the court, which showed that the foetus weighed 2,500 gm and was 45 cm long.
Moreover, the post-mortem examination also found that there was no mark of any external injury on Kausar Bano’s body, which means the allegation that she was attacked by swords is false. The report said she died due to suffocation, fear and shock. Dr J S Kanoria told the court that there was no sword injury on the body. He also said that Kausar Bano’s foetus was removed after the post-mortem was conducted.
False claim of Modi’s role in riots
The claim by Audrey Truschke that Modi oversaw a massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 is a claim that left-liberals and Islamists continue to make, despite having no evidence. The Godhra massacre took place on February 27, the spontaneous riots broke out in response on February 28, and the state government under CM Modi called the army to control the riots the next day, on March 1. The SIT probing the riots have categorically said that there was no delay in calling the army.
In June this year, the Supreme Court of India settled the matter, ruling out any involvement of Modi in the riots. The court also said that the few people who claimed that Modi had instructed police not to stop the rioters were lying.
False claim of thousands of Muslims killed in Gujarat riots
Audrey Truschke also claimed that ‘thousands of Muslims were killed by Hindus’ in the Gujarat riots, another big lie the anti-Hindu camp keeps repeating. According to official data, the total death count in the Gujarat riots was 1125, out of which 863 were Muslims and 262 were Hindus. It is notable that the 2002 Gujarat riots was not one-sided pogrom like the 1986 anti-Sikh riots by the Congress party. While Hindus had attacked Muslims after the Godhra incident, Muslims had also attacked Hindu localities in retaliation.
Moreover, not all deaths were the result of attacks by rioters. Over a hundred people died in police firing to control the riots. The majority of those shot dead by police were Hindus.
Also, among the 1125 deaths, not all of them were confirmed deaths. The original death figure was around 950, and many people were missing. Around 200 missing people were added to the death count in 2009, after they could not be traced seven after their disappearance, according to rules. Many people were found years later, especially children who were found and raised by others.
False claim of BJP celebrating 2002 riots
Audrey Truschke‘s last claim, that BJP is celebrating the 2002 riots, is also completely false. In a speech delivered in Gujarati yesterday, Amit Shah had said that there is peace in Gujarat now after anti-social elements were taught a lesson in 2002. He was referring to how the Gujarat riot was stopped by the police and how the rioters have been punished.
But many media houses distorted his comments, implying that he was talking about the violence against Muslims. Among them was NDTV, which had posted two different tweets misquoting Amit Shah, which gave the wrong impression that he was talking about the riots, while in reality, he was talking about police action against the rioters.
The real incident where the belly of a pregnant Hindu woman was cut open by Muslim rioters
While the incident of ripping open the belly of a pregnant woman didn’t take place during the Gujarat riots, such an incident did take place in a massacre of Hindus by Muslims. During the Moplah rebellion against British rule in the Malabar area in Kerala in 1921, 38 Hindus were slaughtered by Muslims. The Hindus were accused of helping the military, and the Muslim fanatics attacked and killed them.
Among the Hindu victims was a woman who was 7 months pregnant. Her belly was cut open by the Muslim attackers, and the foetus had come out of that opening. This was informed by Annie Beasant, who had narrated the incident in an article published in New India. Opposing the way how the Khilafat movement was going on, she had narrated how the Moplah rioters had created havoc among Hindus.
Annie Beasant wrote, “Can you conceive of a more ghastly and inhuman crime than the murders of babies and pregnant women?…A pregnant woman carrying 7 months was cut through the abdomen by a rebel and she was seen lying dead on the way with the dead child projecting out of the womb…Another: a baby of six months was snatched away from the breast of his own mother and cut into two pieces… Are these rebels human beings or monsters?”
This was mentioned in an article published on 29 November, 1921, in New India. She was very critical of MK Gandhi for letting the violence by Muslims go on in the name of protest against the British.
