Lets Kill Gandhi
Page 103
26.4 If the word 'Conspiracy' is read in its technical sense, then the only persons who before the bomb was exploded at Birla House had any knowledge of the conspiracy were Prof. Jain and his friends Angad Singh and Prof. Yajnik and after the bomb was exploded G.V. Ketkar also had this information. The others can not be said to have had any knowledge about the conspiracy. But the former (Prof. Jain) did not have any knowledge of Nathuram Godse whereas G.V. Ketkar had that knowledge.
26.5 As regards the second question the Commission has found in the discussion in the Chapter 'sub-nomine' G.V. Ketkar and Balukaka Kanitkar, i.e. under the first term of reference (a), that G.V Ketkar whose name has been particularised in the first term of reference, did have, according to his own statement, knowledge of danger to the life of Mahatma Gandhi, knowledge that Nathuram Godse was determined to murder him and also the knowledge of the conspiracy to murder Mahatma Gandhi in which besides Nathuram Godse, there were other participants e.g. Badge and Apte.
TERMS OF REFERENCE (C)
26.76 There is also evidence to show that there was a group of persons mostly Punjabis who had joined together with the object of turning out Muslims and forcing them to go to Pakistan. Amongst them were Avtar Singh of Sher-e-Punjab Hotel who had been detained, Balraj Mehta, Somnath Kapur, one Chavan who was also under detention. They had under them a number of other Punjabis and followers of Savarkar and members of the RSS. They had an easy access to military arms and ammunition and had support and backing of disgruntled rich Punjabis. There was one other in this group, N.V. Limaye, who was also arrested and detained in connection with bomb outrages in Greater Bombay. Thus, there was an organisation which was subsequently suspected by Nagarvala of being involved in the bomb outrage on Mahatma Gandhi, but their communal activities had come to the notice of the Bombay Special Branch earlier and some of them were detained and activities of others were being watched. Thus, in Bombay also there was an organisation which was anti-Muslim whose object was to oust the Muslims; and they had collected weapons of all sorts including bombs so much so that even ex-Col. Mohan Singh of the I.N.A. was suspected though wrongly of being in it, (Nagarvala had also claimed that this group had contacted the Speaker of the U.P. Provincial Assembly Purshottamdas Tandon) and that was at the bidding of Master Tara Singh, the well known Akali Leader. But it has not been proved that this group had anything to do with the Delhi bomb or anti- Gandhi propaganda much less with attempt to murder him.
26.102 Inspite of the erroneous line of investigation adopted by Nagarvala, he was farsighted enough to warn the D.I.B. on January 27th to be careful about the safety of Mahatma Gandhi. That was on the basis of 20X20, i.e., 400 would be kidnappers and if proper precautions were taken in Delhi, the assassin might not have been successful or left unwatched.
26.117 Bannerjee has rightly said that the police was guilty of lethargy and inefficiency and the Commission is of the opinion that in the circumstances those precautions should have been taken, which were deposed before the Commission and in their depositions suggested by police experts. But its result might not be predictable.
26.118 The Commission is unable to hold that the failure of the Bombay Police or their non-cooperation or their wrong investigational tracks, was any justification for the inefficiency shown by the Delhi Police. That however does not exonerate the Bombay Police of the blemishes in their investigation or of rigidness.
26.119 The three principal lacunae of Delhi Police were the failure to provide unobtrusive protection to Mahatma Gandhi and the failure to get Bombay Police to guard and act as watchers and spotters and the failure to get the identity of the proprietor of 'The Hindu Rashtra' and put the Poona Police on to trace him and his associates.
FINDINGS SUMMED UP
26.120 The findings of the Commission on the three terms of reference are as follows:—
TERMS OF REFERENCE (A)—
(i) G.V. Ketkar of Poona did have prior information about danger to the life of Mahatma Gandhi in October or November 1947.
(ii) He did have information of the conspiracy of Nathuram Godse which he learnt from his talk with D.R. Badge on or about 23 January 1948.
(iii) Up to the time he met Badge, he did not know that Apte and Badge were in the conspiracy to murder Mahatma Gandhi; but he must have known about Nathuram Godse's complicity as Nathuram had told him in October or November of his intention or plan to assassinate the Mahatma.
That is the finding of the Commission on the first term of reference.
26.121 Its finding on the second i.e. (b) are as follows:—
TERMS OF REFERENCE (B)—
(i) G.V. Ketkar did not communicate any information to the Government of Bombay or to the Government of India or any of its authorities.
(ii) In particular, Ketkar did not get any information conveyed to the late B.G. Kher through the late Balukaka Kanitkar. This claim made by him is not established. Balukaka Kanitkar conveyed the information of danger to the life of Mahatma Gandhi and other top leaders of the Congress, on his own and out of his own volition. 26.122 The findings of the Commission on the third term i.e. (c)are as follows:
TERM OF REFERENCE (C)—
(i) On the basis of the information conveyed to the Government of Bombay, and in particular to B.G. Kher, no action to try and get the information checked is proved to have been taken by the Government of Bombay or by B.G. Kher. Or by any authority under that Government. The information, in the opinion of the Commission, was vague, misty, nebulous and obscure but the matter should have been referred to the Police C.I.D. and got properly vetted and confirmed. It must be added that it will be highly speculative and conjectural on the part of the Commission to say what the result of this investigation would have been. It might well have been as unproductive, sterile and fruitless as was the result of investigation following definite information given by Prof. Jain or the confessional police statement of Madanlal.
(ii) There is no evidence from Delhi Secretariat or official records or from evidence of Delhi witnesses to show that the information given by Balukaka Kanitkar to B.G. Kher was conveyed to Government of India, i.e. Sardar Patel, Balukaka Kanitkar in a subsequent letter, Ex. 11, did say that B.G. Kher told him that he had conveyed the information to the Sardar. But there is no corroboration of this bald statement either in the evidence of Sardar's Private Secretary V. Shankar or of R. N. Bannerjee or of Maniben Patel. Morarji Desai had stated that Sardar already knew about it from his own sources.
(iii) The information of Balukaka Kanitkar was neither conveyed to any officer of the Government of Bombay nor to any officer of the Government of India.
(iv) There is evidence of Morarji Desai that information given by Balukaka was taken into consideration when the threat relating to welcome to and felicitation of Daji Joshi was discussed. At that meeting Messers Kher and V.T. Dehejia and Morarji Desai were present.
(v) There is evidence of V. Shankar that whatever information Sardar had in regard to danger to the life of Mahatma Gandhi whether conveyed to him by Morarji Desai or received through his own sources was communicated to and discussed with the Provincial Government which, in the opinion of the Commission, was the proper thing to do under the Constitution.
(vi) The precautions taken at Birla House and the adequacy thereof have been discussed in sub chapters (G) and (H) of Chapter XII.
(x) the investigation of the Delhi Police after the arrest of Madanlal was not of a high professional order and it lacked investigational skill and drive which one should have expected from a trained police force and particularly in the case of threat to the life of a person of the eminence of Mahatma Gandhi taking into consideration the knowledge of the factum of a conspiracy to murder Mahatma Gandhi which information Madanlal after his arrest gave to the Delhi Police.
(xi) The D.I.G., C.I.D., Poona, U. H. Rana seems to have ignored the importance and utility of Madanlal's fuller statement, Ex.1, wherein the mention of the proprietor of 'the Hindu Rashtriya' was a very valuable clue, which if pur
sued would have disclosed the identity of Apte and with a little more diligence also of Godse. Whether they could have arrested them or not would still be speculative.
(xii) it is unfortunate that Nagarvala was not allowed an opportunity to read and study Madanlal's statement, Ex.1, and it is surprising why he did not evince any interest in that statement and insist or reading it through to find out what Madanlal had disclosed. This action is quite at variance with his later action after the murder, when he got Madanlal over to Bombay and interrogated him at great length. No doubt, then he was the principal investigator and previously he was what he calls, working out an information. It might be that his inquiry was complementary to the investigation by the Delhi Police, but a study of Madanlal's statement should have been as helpful then as it was after the murder.
(xiii) The powers of the Police to move in a case like the present where information was given to the Bombay Police of a conspiracy to murder Mahatma Gandhi at Delhi have been debated before the Commission. It was argued that in such cases the Bombay Police, as then constituted, was helpless and had no power to investigate and take action.
(xiv) Evidence shows that Godse and Apte were staying at different hotels under assumed names. Where the hotelkeeper had no means of knowing that the names being given are false, there may be no easy remedy. But where, as in the case of the Arya Pathik Ashram, the manager, Gaya Shankar Dubey, PW. 68, was aware that Apte had given a false name and yet he allowed that to be done without demur, the law should be made stringent and should make the hotelkeeper liable in such cases to higher penalty then merely a small fine.
(xv) In considering the measures taken by the authorities this crucial fact has to be kept in view that the Congress Governments had just come into power after several years of struggle by the Congress and its helpers against the British Government, in which the strictness of police interference with the liberty of the subject played a very important part. The Congress Governments could not suddenly adopt or allow the adoption of strict measures by the police, a tail put on by them on and keeping, as it were, under surveillance citizens of India even if they happened to be rather bad citizens.
Shastri Bhavan,
J.L. Kapur,
New Delhi,
Commission of Inquiry,
September 30, 1969
Mahatma Gandhi Murder Conspiracy
With the submission of the Kapur Commission's Report, the curtain finally fell on the final chapter in the sordid saga of the murder of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation.
* * *
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I
'REX VERSUS NATHURAM GODSE AND EIGHT ACCUSED.
I, Atmacharan, am charging you Nathuram Godse (37), Narayan Apte (34), Vishnu Karkare (37), Madanlal Pahwa (20), Shankar Kistayya (20), Gopal Godse (27), Vinayak Savarkar (65) and Dattatreya Parchure (49):
I
Firstly, that you, Nathuram V. Godse, Narayan D. Apte, Vishnu R. Karkare, Madanlal K. Pahwa, Shankar Kistayya, Gopal V. Godse, Vinayak D. Savarkar and Dattatreya S. Parchure between December 1, 1947, and January 30, 1948, at Poona, Bombay, Delhi and other places agreed and conspired among and between yourselves and Digambar R. Badge, who has been tendered a pardon. Gangadhar S. Dandawate, Gangadhar Jadhav and Suryadev Sharma, who along with others not known are absconding, to do or caused to be done an illegal act, viz., to commit the murder of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi more popularly known as 'Mahatma Gandhi' that the same act, viz., the murder of 'Mahatma Gandhi' was done in pursuance of the said agreement and conspiracy at Delhi on January 30, 1948, and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 120(B) of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and within the cognisance of the Court;
II
Secondly, that in pursuance of the said agreement and conspiracy between January 10, 1948 and January 20, 1948, you Nathuram V. Godse, Narayan D. Apte, Vishnu R. Karkare, Madanlal K. Pahwa, Shankar Kistayya and Gopal V Godse along with Digambar R. Badge:
A(1) transported without a licence to Delhi arms and ammunition, viz., 2 revolvers with cartridges, in contravention of the provisions of Section 10 of the Indian Arms Act and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 19(d) of the Indian Arms Act and within the cognisance of the Court;
(2) Abetted each other in the commission of the above offence and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 19(d) of the Indian Arms Act read with Sections 109 and 114 of the Indian Penal Code, and within cognisance of the Court;
B(1) at Delhi, had without a licence in your possession under your control arms and ammunition, viz., 2 revolvers with cartridges, in contravention of the provisions of Section 14 and 15 of the Indian Arms Act and there by committed an offence punishable under Section 19(f) of the Indian Arms Act and within the cognisance of the Court;
(2) at Delhi, abetted each other in the commission of the above offence and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 19(f) of the Indian Arms Act read with Section 114 of the Indian Penal Code and within the cognisance of the Court;
III
Thirdly, that in pursuance of the said agreement and conspiracy between January 10, 1948 and January 20, 1948, at Delhi you Nathuram V. Godse, Narayan D. Apte, Vishnu R. Karkare, Madanlal K. Pahwa, Shankar Kistayya and Gopal V. Godse along with Digambar R. Badge:
A(1) had in your possession and under your control explosive substances, viz., 2 gun-cotton-slabs and five hand grenades with detonators and wicks, with intent to endanger life by means thereof or to enable any other person to endanger life thereof and thereby committed an offence Punishable under Section 4(b) of the Explosive Substance Act and within the cognisance of the Court;
(2) abetted each other in the commission of the above offence and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 4(b) of the Explosive Substances Act read with Section 6 of the Act and within cognisance of the Court;
B(1) had in your possession and under your control explosive substances, viz., 2 gun-cotton-slabs and 5 hand grenades with detonators and wicks, under such circumstances as to give rise to a reasonable suspicion that you did not have them in your possession or under your control for a lawful object and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 5 of the Explosive Substances Act and within the cognisance of the Court;
(2) abetted each other in the commission of the above offence and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 5 of the Explosive Substances Act read with Section 6 of the Act and within the cognisance of the Court;
IV
Fourthly, that in pursuance of the said agreement and conspiracy on January 20, 1948, at Birla House, Delhi, you A(1) Madanlal K. Pahwa unlawfully and maliciously caused an explosive substance, viz., a gun-cotton-slab, to explode, which explosion was of a nature likely to endanger life and to cause serious injury to property and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 3 of the Explosive Substances Act and within the cognisance of the Court; (2) Nathuram V. Godse, Narayan D. Apte, Vishnu R. Karkare, Shankar Kistayya and Gopal V. Godse along with Digambar R. Badge abetted Madanlal K. Pahwa in the commission of the above offence, and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 3 of the Explosive Substances Act read with Section 6 of the Act and within the cognisance of the Court;
V
Fifthly, that in pursuance of the said agreement a conspiracy on January 20, 1948 at Birla House, Delhi, you Nathuram V. Godse, Narayan D. Apte, Vishnu R. Karkare, Madanlal K. Pahwa, Shankar Kistayya, Gopal V. Godse and Vinayak D. Savarkar along with Digambar R. Badge abetted each other in the commission of an offence, viz., to commit the murder of 'Mahatma Gandhi' which offence is punishable with death or transportation for life and which offence was not committed in consequence of the abetment and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 115 of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and within the cognisance of the Court;
VI
Sixthly, that in pursuance of the said agree
ment and conspiracy between January 28, 1948, and January 30, 1948, you
A(1) Nathuram V. Godse and Narayan D. Apte brought without a licence from Gwalior to Delhi arms and ammunition, viz., automatic pistol No. 606824 with cartridges, in contravention of the provisions of Section 6 of the Indian Arms Act and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 19 (c) of the Indian Arms Act and within the cognisance of the Court;
(2) Nathuram V. Godse, Narayan D. Apte and Dattatreya S. Parchure abetted each other in the commission of the above offence punishable under Section 19(c) of the Indian Arms Act read with Section 114 of the Indian Penal Code and within cognisance of the Court;
B(1) Nathuram V. Godse at Delhi, had in your possession and under your control arms and ammunition, viz., automatic pistol No.606824 with cartridges, in contravention of Section 14 and 15 of the Indian Arms Act and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 19(f) of the Indian Arms Act and within the cognisanceof the Court;
(2) Narayan D. Apte and Vishnu R. Karkare at Delhi, abetted each other in the commission of the above offence and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 19(f) of the Indian Arms Act read with Section 114 of the Indian Penal Code and within the cognisance of the Court;