Tehelka:: Free. Fair. Fearless
TEHELKA: It was a petrol tanker, no?
Bajrangi: It was diesel… We drove a whole diesel tanker in and then set [the mosque] on fire…
TEHELKA: Meaning, it was the tanker explosion which set Patiya on fire?
Bajrangi: In the masjid…
TEHELKA: In the masjid…
Bajrangi: As for the rest of it, I was in charge at the time… Whatever I wanted to do, I did…
TEHELKA: At the pit, was oil… Those people had gathered there…
Bajrangi: It was a huge pit… You could enter it from one side but you couldn’t climb out at the other end… They were all there together… They started clinging to each other… Even while they were dying, they told each other, you die too, what are you going to be saved for, you die too… so the number of deaths increased.
TEHELKA: Then people poured oil in…
Bajrangi: Oil and burning tyres…
TEHELKA: Where did the oil come from?
Bajrangi: Oh that… We had lots of material with us… we filled lots of jerrycans in advance… From the petrol pump, the night before… Petrol pump owners gave us petrol and diesel for free…
• • •
TEHELKA: Muslims were hacked to pieces…
Bajrangi: Hacked, burnt, set on fire, many things were done… many… We believe in setting them on fire because these b*stards say they don’t want to be cremated, they’re afraid of it, they say this and that will happen to them… I have just one wish… one last wish…. Let me be sentenced to death… I don’t want to be incarcerated… I don’t care if I’m hanged… Give me two days before my hanging and I will go and have a field day in Juhapura [a Muslim dominated are], where seven or eight lakh of these people stay… I will finish them off … Let a few more of them die… At least 25-50,000 should die…
Bajrangi: There was just one Muslim… some big SRP man… Sayeed…
TEHELKA: He was an officer...
Bajrangi: Yes, he was… All this cutting and killing happened behind the SRP camp… The ones who weren’t in the pit, they ran and got into the SRP compound… The SRP jawans there were driving them away… when the officer came in his vehicle and said take everyone inside… He was in command… an officer… So, lots of people were saved this way… at least 500 were rescued… Otherwise would they have all gone too… The officer was also fired at… He is also a witness against me…
TEHELKA: But then Narendrabhai promoted him and…
Bajrangi: Silenced him… So, there was good work done in Patiya. Today too I am fighting against Muslims and will continue to do so… I have nothing to do with politics… What I say is this: the VHP is an organisation… a Hindu organisation… Our politics should be limited to killing Muslims, beating them up…
TEHELKA: How do you feel after you have killed Muslims…
Bajrangi: Maza aata hai na, saheb [I enjoy it]… I came back after I killed them them, called up the home minister and went to sleep… I felt like Rana Pratap, that I had done something like Maharana Pratap… I’d heard stories about him, but that day I did what he did myself.