Carrying placards, people participating the demonstration demanded an action against those involved in 2002 riots, saying “We don’t want temple/mosques, but don’t play with our lives’’.

They also demanded to put a ban on organisations like — Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and Durga Vahini—- saying the members of these organisations played an active role in the violence.

Leading the civil society movement, human rights activist Father Cedric Prakash said, “The idea of the launching civil society movement is to make the people of Gujarat aware of truth. We want to tell people that government’s claims about development and human rights is all fake,’’ he told Newsline.

He said that after Ahmedabad, the civil society members planned to hold dharnas and demonstrations at important urban centres in the State, particularly in tribal belt and Central Gujarat region that were worst hit during 2002 riots, asking asking people to defeat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his party in Assembly elections.

With political parties maintaining silence over vital human rights issues and keeping mum even after Tehelka-Aaj Tak expose, Prakash said it was the responsibility of the civil society to come forward and pressurise the government for legal action against the culprits.

The agitating members demanded that BJP, as principal party in power at Centre then and in the State as well, should take moral responsibility of the 2002 violence and issue a strong condemnation of those involved in it as show in Tehelka tapes. They also asked the State administration to take immediate steps to cancel the bail of all those named in the tapes like Babu Bajrangi and Jaideep Patel who are curently out on bail. They demanded the matter be investigated by the CBI.

The civil society members also made a demand for re-telecast of the Tehelka expose, since most of the state had been unable to view the same on account of the unconstitutional ban on the channels showing Tehelka tapes.

Later, following this, the Navrangpura police arrested 15 of the activists. NGOs in the city are now planning more protests in order to highlight the fascist behaviour of the authorities.