Haren Pandya

Haren Pandya (27 August 1961 – 26 March 2003) was an Indian politician and a former Home Minister of Gujarat. He was murdered in 2003 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, when he was sitting in his car (the place of his murder is contentious), after a morning walk in the Law Garden area in Ahmedabad.

Political career Haren Pandya represented the Ellis Bridge Assembly constituency of Ahmedabad as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator. He was a member of the RSS from his early age and was also a Municipal Councillor from the Paldi area of Ahmedabad. Pandya was a strong supporter of Chief Minister of Gujarat Keshubhai Patel, and in 1998, after the BJP came to power in Gujarat with Keshubhai as Chief Minister, Pandya was made Home Minister. He was appointed Minister of State for revenue after Narendra Modi took over as the Chief Minister; however, he resigned from the post in August 2002. Fearing that he would be denied a ticket for the 2002 Gujarat Legislative Assembly election, he withdrew from the electoral fray. Later, he was appointed to BJP's national executive.

Pandya's wife Jagruti Pandya contested on a Gujarat Parivartan Party ticket in 2012 on the premise that the Modi Government was involved in the conspiracy to murder her husband. She was quoted, "My husband's assassination was a political murder. For the last 10 years, I have been fighting a legal battle to get him justice but in vain, however, I will continue to fight". "I have never made any personal allegations, never named anybody. So I have no personal issues with Narendra Modi or Amit Shah. I just questioned the manner in which the probe was conducted," she said.

2002 Gujarat violence After the 2002 Gujarat violence, it was reported that in a cabinet meeting, Pandya had opposed the bringing of bodies of the victims to Ahmedabad because that would arouse passion. It has been claimed that he was the only person able to arrange meetings between victims' family members and Muslim leaders for peace talks, but he was shouted down at the meeting by some ministers.

Supreme Court of India acknowledged the allegations that Pandya played an active role in post-Godhra riots and also stated that there was an allegation that he was involved in leading a mob which demolished a mosque in Paldi and he resisted its reconstruction. The Supreme Court held that allegations of this involvement led to his murder as revenge.

In November 2007, Outlook reported that Pandya had revealed to the magazine in May 2002 that on the night of 27 February 2002 Narendra Modi had held a meeting in his residence, in which he instructed the attending bureaucrats and police officers to allow "people to vent their frustration and not come in the way of the Hindu backlash."

It has also been revealed that Pandya had testified before The Concerned Citizens Tribunal on 2002 Gujarat riots. Referring to Pandya's testimony, the tribunal's report says: