A sting operation backed by Tehelka magazine on Thursday claimed to have exposed the involvement of VHP leaders in the post-Godhra riots of 2002 with Chief Minister Narenda Modi “giving them free hand for three days” to attack minorities in the state.

The sting operation telecast by Headlines Today and Aaj Tak showed on record the VHP leaders like Baba Bajrangi, Anil Patel, Dhawel Patel as also Harsih Bhatt, the BJP MLA, Godhra, saying how they killed Muslims, made bombs and got “most helpful Gujarat police” facilitating their task. The television story had Gujarat VHP leaders as saying that apart from Modi it was VHP national general secretary Praveen Togadia who guided them in their operation.

We slit open her abdomen (Kauser Bano's), ripped out the foetus and threw it out in Naroda Patiya. We showed them what we can do. I called up the then minister of Gordhan Zadafia and VHP General Secretary Jaideep Patel and informed them. Zadafia immediately told me to escape from Gujarat," the tapes show Babu Bajrangi as saying.

Haresh Bhatt claims: "Modi told me I'll give you three days. Do whatever you want, you will not be touched. No other CM could have done this."

  Congress has demanded an independent inquiry into the alleged involvement of the Modi govt in the Godhra riots in the wake of the recent sting operation by a private channel and Tehelka, the Left parties said what had been in the realm of speculation has now been proved beyond doubt.

The sting expose claimed it had "irrefutable" evidence that the killings during post-Godhra train carnage in Gujarat was "not a spontaneous swell of anger but a genocide" planned and executed by top functionaries of the Sangh Parivar and state authorities "with the sanction" of Chief Minister Narendra Modi.