The Hero Behind Justice-IPS officer, Rahul Sharma

Sharma was the deputy superintendent of police of Bhavnagar during the post-Godhra riots, and had led from the front to prevent the town from being engulfed into the communal frenzy. His prompt action against the rioting elements is believed to have left Bhavnagar unscathed.

Ironically, he was transferred soon after the riots to the police control room in Ahmedabad. It was here that he was asked to assist the investigations into the Naroda Patiya massacre. He collected the call records pertaining to all key numbers of Ahmedabad. The data proved a damning evidence of the call traffic between key elements who led the riots, including political leaders and those holding important positions in the state government and police.

When IPS officer Rahul Sharma was asked to assist the crime branch in the riot probe, he suggested that names of these three(Kodnani, VHP leader Jaideep Patel and Naroda's police inspector K K Mysorewala) be included in the chargesheet. Sharma was transferred out of Ahmedabad. But by then, the IPS officer had obtained a CD with call details of prominent people present at various places in Ahmedabad when the riots were taking place, including Naroda Patia. 

Sharma furnished the call details before the state government-appointed Nanavati Commission and the Centre's U C Banerjee committee. Analysis of this data by Nirjhari Mukul Sinha of Jan Sangharsh Manch revealed Kodnani's presence at Naroda Patia during the massacre. The analysis was handed over to the SIT when it took over the probe in 2008. The probe agency had submitted the data to the court. SIT arrested Kodnani in 2009 after which she resigned as minister. Finally, she was served a lifer on August 31.

Even though Sharma was subjected to yet another transfer thereafter, the call records and its analysis, backed by eyewitness accounts, led the Supreme Court-appointed SIT to nail former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani and VHP general secretary Jaydeep Patel in 2009.

Sharma, who had handed over copies of the CDs of call records to the Nanavati panel, which probed the Gujarat riots, during his deposition before it, now faces charges of violation of the Official Secrets Act, by not getting prior clearance from the state government. The proposed chargesheet against him was cleared at the highest level in the state.

Sharma, a 1992 batch IPS officer now posted as DIG Rajkot, was DCP (control room), Ahmedabad, in April 2002. Investigating the violence at Naroda Patiya and Gulberg Society, he collected data from AT&T and CelForce mobile service providers of all calls received and made in Ahmedabad during this period and handed over these to the Crime Branch. These CDS containing phone records of senior ministers, police officers, and members of RSS and VHP to each other were subsequently “lost”. But while deposing before the Nanavati Commission set up in March 2002 to inquire into the riots, Sharma submitted a copy of this CD that he had preserved.

These phone records have been one of the most significant pieces of evidence in nailing the guilty, including the arrest and the cancelling of anticipatory bails of Gujarat VHP president Jaideep Patel and minister Maya Kodnani in 2009, and in the investigation into the killing of Congress ex-MP Ahsan Jafri and 30 others at Gulberg Society. The CDS are vital pieces of evidence in the Naroda Patiya violence in which 105 Muslims were killed by official count.