Haren Pandya

Haren Pandya was the Home Minister of Gujarat in India. 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.

He represented the Ellis Bridge constituency of Ahmedabad City 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 City. Pandya was a strong supporter of Keshubhai Patel and in 1998, after the BJP came to power in Gujarat with Keshubhai as Chief Minister, Pandya was made Home Minister of Gujarat. He was appointed as Minister of state for revenue after Modi took over as the Chief Minister; however, he resigned from the post in 2003. Fearing that he would be denied a ticket for the 2002 assembly elections, he withdrew from the electoral fray. Later he was appointed to BJP's national executive.

Haren Pandya wife Jagruti Pandya contested on Gujarat Parivartan Party ticket in 2012 on the premise that the Modi Government was involved in the conspiracy to murder her husband. She 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.

After the Godhra riots, it was reported that Pandya, in a cabinet meeting, had opposed the bringing of the bodies of the victims of Godhra carnage to Ahmedabad because that would arouse passion. He was the only person able to arrange meetings between victim's family members and Muslim leaders for Peace talk but he was shouted down at the meeting by some ministers

In November 2007, Outlook reported that Pandya had revealed to the magazine in May 2002 that on the night of February 27, 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." Pandya had disclosed this information on condition of confidentiality. On August 19, 2002, Pandya again spoke to the magazine, according to Outlook, and reiterated what he had said earlier with the additional comment that if his identity as the source of this information were to be revealed then he would be killed. The second conversation with Pandya was recorded by the magazine.

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