varkar in 1906 wrote about 1857, spoke about Hindus
and Muslims becoming blood brothers.
Savarkar’s views changed later.
I am concerned with his views expressed as a member
of Abhinav Bharat. I am not concerned with his views
expressed as a member of the Hindu Mahasabha or
anything else.
You talk about a fourth bullet in the Gandhi murder.
Investigators found three bullet entry wounds and
two exit wounds.
Let’s be very specifi c. Three entry wounds, two exit
wounds. So one bullet remained in the body.
Yes, so it is accounted for.
Yes, it was later recovered with the ashes, as no au-
topsy was performed. I hope you have read this book
The Men Who Killed Gandhi [by Manohar Malgonkar].
Yes, I have. It’s a great work.
One bullet remained in the body, so it is accounted for.
Two bullets, the DSP says he recovered. So all three
bullets accounted for. So how did Manuben discover
a bullet in the shawl at one in the night? This is the
English translation of her handwritten diaries in Gu-
jarati. I have got it from the National Archives in Del-
hi. “Around one o’ clock, Bapu was brought inside to
bathe. While taking him to bathroom all started to cry.
Bapu’s dhoti, shawl, hand-
kerchief were covered
with blood. From clothes
one bullet came out.” This
is contemporary record,
written on January 31,
1948, by Manuben. Is she
lying?
The Dawn in its headline
says Four Shots. The Times
of India and the Lok Satta
reported four bullets, and
you have this evidence
from Manuben. So why
have four bullets been con-
verted into three? Who did
that? Is it not a very mate-
rial discrepancy in a mur-
der trial?
Now let’s come to the
Beretta pistol. Its cham-
ber had seven bullets.
The police found four
live cartridges in it. So
where did this fourth bul-
let come from? Not from
this Beretta pistol, I am
sure. Who is hiding this
and why? Tushar Gandhiin his book Let’s Kill Gandhi makes a stunning
allegation on page 77—that he was told that
when Manuben was going to testify before the
Kapur Commission, Morarji Desai called her
and told her to tell the commission that she was
too young at that time and she couldn’t remem-
ber. Manuben replied that she was a disciple of
Gandhi and she would tell the truth and nothing
but the truth.
I am not the first person who is alleging a
cover-up. There was a gentleman from Goa who
migrated to Portugal. He wrote a book, Who
Killed Gandhi, in 1964 and it was banned in 1979.
Manuben testified before the Kapur
Commission that Nathuram Godse had come in
the afternoon on January 30. He stood right next
to Gandhi and he could have killed him then. But,
for some reason, he did not.
Alwar police records show that a foreigner
sadhu distributed pamphlets at three in the
afternoon saying Gandhi had been murdered.
Those days we had cyclostyles. It is a process.
So these pamphlets must have been printed an
hour earlier. But, nothing happened to Gandhi
at three in the afternoon. Who was this sadhu?
Then there is the testimony of Sarla Barve,
wife of the collector of Poona. She mentions that
a person called Sathe met her on January 27 or- He told her that he was worried that two or
three people from Poona had gone to kill Gandhi.
The Dawn in
its headline
says Four
Shots. The
Times of
India and the
Lok Satta
reported four
bullets.
Right
aligned:
Savarkar
flanked by
Apte and
Nathuram
at the
launch of
Agrani
newspaper(^36) THE WEEK NOVEMBER 12, 2017
COVER STORY