2002 Grand National, The Race
Bindaree and What's Up Boys jumped the last two fences together well clear of Blowing Wind in third. What's Up Boys gained the advantage on the run in by 3 lengths and past the elbow, 75 yards from the finish Bindaree took the lead and stayed on well to win the race ahead of What's Up Boys in second. Blowing Wind was third 27 lengths behind What's Up Boys. Kingsmark finished fourth, Supreme Charm and Celibate ran good races to finish 5th and 6th respectively. Behind these was You're Agoodun, Royal Predica, Streamstown, Birkdale and Mely Moss who was last to complete after falling at the second last fence (29th) and remounting. Eleven horses completed the race.


2002 Grand National, Aftermath
Winner Bindaree collected a prize of £290,000 for his owner Raymond Mould, while Aintree reported a record attendance in the modern era of 120,000 spectators over the meeting and 63,000 for the National itself. The Tote also recorded an on-course record turnover of £3 million and both they and bookmakers returned good profits from the defeat of the eight most popular horses.


2002 Grand National, Aftermath
Manx Magic was fatally injured with a cervical fracture in a fall at the 20th fence, and The Last Fling broke his back falling at the second Canal Turn and had to be euthanised by vets. Lyreen Wonder also had to be treated by vets after unseating its rider at the 20th fence, the horse ran loose until falling at the 27th fence and seriously injuring itself. The horse never raced again.


2002 Grand National, Aftermath
Seven riders made their Grand national debut but their openings were all on outsiders, and none completed the course. Ben Hichott parted company with his mount at the first fence and never took part in the race again. Mark Bradburne also fell at the first while the other rookies were Paul Moloney, Marcus Foley, Barry Cash, Gerry Supple and Philip O'Brien.


2002 Grand National, Aftermath
Former winner Carl Llewellyn was the most experienced rider in the race, weighing out for a Grand National for the 12th time, though he too failed to complete the course on this occasion on leading contender Beau.


2002 Grand National, Aftermath, Quotes
Winning jockey Jim Culloty told the press after the race: "When the second horse came by us I thought, "Jesus, we're beat! But Bindaree's as brave as they come, he stuck his neck out and went down the rails. I couldn't in my wildest dreams ever think about winning the National. In an ideal world I would have wanted to up the tempo from three out, but with the loose horse I was having a nightmare. However, [Bindaree] got me out of jail at the last — he's a brilliant jumper."


2002 Grand National, Aftermath, Quotes
Second-placed jockey Richard Johnson said: "I was happy to get round for the first time but it was annoying to be caught on the line. He gave me a good ride and he'll be back next year. When I got after him we flew, but we gave the winner a lot of weight and you can't take anything away from my horse."


2002 Grand National, Aftermath, Quotes
Tony McCoy, whose horse came home third, said: "I was a bit disappointed because after last year I thought he was the perfect National horse. He's such a good jumper and so intelligent, but looking back he was happier on the soft ground last year than he was this time round."


2002 Grand National, Aftermath, Quotes
Noel Fehily, sixth on Celibate, said "It was a brilliant ride. He was foot-perfect and picking up at the Melling Road. I began to think something good was going to happen, then he got tired."


2002 Grand National, Aftermath, Quotes
Streamstown's jockey John McNamara, who finished ninth, said: "He jumped around and gave me a brilliant feel and he even had to jump another horse after the Canal Turn. He has run a blinder really on ground which was much too fast for him."


2002 Grand National, Aftermath, Quotes
Norman Williamson, the last to complete the course on Mely Moss, said: "He ran a great race and gave me a brilliant ride. He would have finished about sixth but he fell near the finish and I had to remount."


2002 Grand National, Media coverage
All three days of the meeting were televised live in the United Kingdom by the BBC with the racing on the Thursday and Friday being broadcast on BBC Two before the main Saturday event which was aired on BBC One. The BBC also broadcast a Grand National special edition of its sporting quiz show A Question of Sport the evening before the race. This was immediately followed by a live race preview show, The Night Before the National, on BBC Two, presented by Clare Balding from the pre-National gala dinner at St. George's Hall in Liverpool.


2002 Grand National, Media coverage
It was the 43rd consecutive year the BBC broadcast the race in a Grand National Grandstand special and was presented by Sue Barker. Running from 1.00pm - 4.45pm, this would be the first year Football Focus and Final Score would not form part of the Grand National day coverage as both became standalone programmes at the start of the 2001/2002 football season. The commentary team remained, John Hanmer, Tony O'Hehir and Jim McGrath, who called the horses home for the fifth year.


2002 Grand National, Media coverage
Richard Pitman, Peter Scudamore and Tony Dobbin provided in-depth analysis of the race in a slow motion re-run offering views taken from cameras located inside the fences and some jockeys' caps as well as an aerial view. Dobbin stepped in at the last moment after Scudamore was overcome with emotion at the result, being the assistant trainer of the winner. Scudamore did however join Pitman and Dobbin halfway through the review.


2002 Grand National, Media coverage
BBC Radio covered the race for the 71st year, on the Saturday Sport on Five broadcast hosted by Mark Pougatch and Cornelius Lysaght. The radio commentary team was Ian Bartlett, Peader Flanagan and Dave Smith, with Lee McKenzie calling the runners home for the first time.


2002 Grand Prix Americas
The 2002 Grand Prix Americas was the sixteenth round of the 2002 CART FedEx Champ Car World Series season, held on October 6, 2002 on the Bayfront Park street circuit in Miami, Florida. Cristiano da Matta won the race and clinched the season championship.


2002 Grand Prix Hassan II
This is the current revision of this page, as edited by BHGbot (talk | contribs) at 21:32, 19 June 2020 (WP:BHGbot 6 (List 5): eponymous category first, per MOS:CATORDER; WP:GENFIXES). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this version.


2002 Grand Prix Hassan II
The 2002 Grand Prix Hassan II was a tennis tournament played on outdoor clay courts at the Complexe Al Amal in Casablanca in Morocco and was part of the International Series of the 2002 ATP Tour. It was the 18th edition of the tournament and was held from April 8 through April 14, 2002.


2002 Grand Prix Hassan II, Finals, Doubles
Stephen Huss /  Myles Wakefield defeated  Martín García /  Luis Lobo 6–4, 6–2


2002 Grand Prix Hassan II – Doubles
Michael Hill and Jeff Tarango were the defending champions but they competed with different partners that year, Hill with Daniel Vacek and Tarango with David Adams.


2002 Grand Prix Hassan II – Doubles
Hill and Vacek lost in the first round to Martín García and Luis Lobo.


2002 Grand Prix Hassan II – Doubles
Adams and Tarango lost in the quarterfinals to Stephen Huss and Myles Wakefield.


2002 Grand Prix Hassan II – Doubles
Huss and Wakefield won in the final 6–4, 6–2 against García and Lobo.


2002 Grand Prix Hassan II – Singles
Guillermo Cañas was the defending champion but lost in the final 3–6, 6–3, 6–2 against Younes El Aynaoui.


2002 Grand Prix SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem
The 2002 Grand Prix SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem was a women's tennis tournament played on outdoor clay courts in Casablanca, Morocco that was part of the Tier V category of the 2002 WTA Tour. It was the second edition of the tournament and was held from 8 July until 14 July 2002. Sixth-seeded Patricia Wartusch won the singles title and earned $16,000 first-prize money.


2002 Grand Prix SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem, Finals, Doubles
Petra Mandula /  Patricia Wartusch defeated  Gisela Dulko /  Conchita Martínez Granados 6–2, 6–1


2002 Grand Prix SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem – Doubles
Lubomira Bacheva and Åsa Svensson were the defending champions, but both players chose to compete at Palermo in the same week.


2002 Grand Prix SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem – Doubles
Petra Mandula and Patricia Wartusch won the title by defeating Gisela Dulko and Conchita Martínez Granados 6–2, 6–1 in the final.


2002 Grand Prix SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem – Singles
Zsófia Gubacsi was the defending champion, but lost in the quarterfinals to Gisela Dulko.


2002 Grand Prix SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem – Singles
Patricia Wartusch won the title by defeating Klára Koukalová 5–7, 6–3, 6–3 in the final.


2002 Grand Prix at Road America
The 2002 Grand Prix at Road America was the twelfth round of the 2002 CART FedEx Champ Car World Series season, held on August 18, 2002 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.


2002 Grand Prix de Denain
The 2002 Grand Prix de Denain was the 44th edition of the Grand Prix de Denain cycle race and was held on 25 April 2002. The race was won by Alberto Vinale.


2002 Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon
The 2002 Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon was a men's tennis tournament played on indoor carpet courts at the Palais des Sports de Gerland in Lyon in France and was part of the International Series of the 2002 ATP Tour. It was the 16th edition of the tournament and took place from 7 October through 13 October 2002. Unseeded Paul-Henri Mathieu, who entered the tournament on a special exempt,  won the singles title.


2002 Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon, Finals, Doubles
Wayne Black /  Kevin Ullyett defeated  Mark Knowles /  Daniel Nestor 6–4, 3–6, 7–6(7–3)


2002 Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon – Doubles
Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjić were the defending champions but they competed with different partners that year, Nestor with Mark Knowles and Zimonjić with Julien Boutter.


2002 Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon – Doubles
Boutter and Zimonjić lost in the semifinals to Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett.


2002 Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon – Doubles
Knowles and Nestor lost in the final 6–4, 3–6, 7–6(7–3) against Black and Ullyett.


2002 Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon – Singles
Ivan Ljubičić was the defending champion but lost in the second round to Kristian Pless.


2002 Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon – Singles
Paul-Henri Mathieu won in the final 4–6, 6–3, 6–1 against Gustavo Kuerten.


2002 Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières
The 2002 Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières was the sixth round of the 2002 American Le Mans Series season. It took place on a temporary street circuit known as Circuit Trois-Rivières in Quebec, on August 3, 2002.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season
The 2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season was the 54th Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) Road Racing World Championship season. The season consist of 16 races, which started with the Japanese Grand Prix on 7 April and ended with the Valencian Community Grand Prix on 3 November.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season
The premier class, now renamed MotoGP, introduced new rules and regulations which allowed 990cc four-stroke bikes to race alongside the previous year's 500cc two-stroke bikes. Defending champion Valentino Rossi won his second premier class title by winning 11 races and scoring 355 points. He clinched the title at the Rio de Janeiro Grand Prix, with four races left in the season.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season
The 250cc title was won by Marco Melandri who won nine races and scored 298 points. He clinched the title at the Australian Grand Prix and became the youngest ever champion in the 250cc class. Arnaud Vincent won the 125cc title by 19 points difference over defending champion Manuel Poggiali. The title was decided in the last race of the season at Valencia with Vincent finishing in second place to secure the title.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, MotoGP class
The season marked the start of a new era in the premier class with the arrival of 990cc four-stroke bikes. Four factory teams, Repsol Honda, Marlboro Yamaha, Suzuki and Aprilia, raced with the new four-stroke bikes while all the satellite teams raced with the 500cc two-stroke bike. The season also marked the return of Dunlop and the entry of Bridgestone to the premier class. Dunlop supplied the tyres for Suzuki, Aprilia, Yamaha WCM and Pramac Honda. Bridgestone supplied the tyres for Team Roberts and Kanemoto Racing. Michelin supplied the tyres for the remaining six teams. However, after only two races, Suzuki switched back to Michelin tyres for the remainder of the season.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, MotoGP class
Valentino Rossi, riding the four-stroke Honda RC211V bike, won the first race of the season at Suzuka under wet conditions. Suzuki's test rider Akira Ryō, who raced as a wildcard entry, and Yamaha's Carlos Checa completed the all four-stroke podium. Rossi's teammate, Tohru Ukawa, won the second race before Rossi went on to dominate the championship by winning seven consecutive races. Max Biaggi handed the four-stroke Yamaha YZR-M1 its first win in the Czech Republic Grand Prix at Brno, while Rossi had to retire due to tyre problems. In that race, Honda also expanded their four-stroke presence by providing the RC211V bike for Honda Gresini rider Daijiro Kato. Rossi then won two consecutive races in Portugal and Brazil, clinching the world championship in the latter.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, MotoGP class
In the Pacific Grand Prix, Honda Pons rider Alex Barros won his first race riding the RC211V bike. In that race, Kawasaki returned to the world championship after 20 years absence. Kawasaki, with their four-stroke Ninja ZX-RR, raced as wildcards in the last four races of the season as a preparation before entering the championship full-time in the following season. In the following race at Sepang, Yamaha expanded their four-stroke presence by providing the YZR-M1 bikes to Tech 3 pair Olivier Jacque and Shinya Nakano. Another Yamaha rider, Norifumi Abe, raced the fifth YZR-M1 on the grid for the last two races of the season.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, MotoGP class
Rossi ended the season with 355 points from 11 wins and four second places. Biaggi finished second to Rossi with 215 points and two race wins. Ukawa and Barros completed the top four with 209 and 204 points respectively. Previous year's 250cc champion Daijiro Kato finished in seventh position with two podium finishes and was named as the Rookie of the Year. All races were won by the four-stroke bikes, while the two-strokes only managed to record five podiums finishes. Honda won the constructors championship with 390 points and 14 wins, followed by Yamaha who won the other two races. Repsol Honda team won the teams championship by winning 12 races and scoring 564 points from Rossi and Ukawa. Marlboro Yamaha and Honda Pons who won two races each was second and third respectively.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, 250cc class
The 250cc class was certain to have a new champion as previous year's champion Daijiro Kato and 1993 champion Tetsuya Harada, who finished second to Kato last year, both moved up to the MotoGP class. Only three riders remained from previous year's top six: Marco Melandri, Roberto Rolfo and Fonsi Nieto. Melandri was the only rider in the 250cc class who has previously won a 250cc race; he won his first and only race in the 2001 German Grand Prix. The 250cc entry list also included three former 125cc World Champion: Haruchika Aoki, Roberto Locatelli and Emilio Alzamora.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, 250cc class
The season started with a wet race at Suzuka which was won by Japanese wildcard rider Osamu Miyazaki, who was riding for Daytona Yamaha team. Honda's wildcard rider Daisaku Sakai and Aprilia's Randy de Puniet completed the podium. In the following race at Welkom, Aprilia's Marco Melandri took his second career 250cc win. Fonsi Nieto then took his first ever race win in the Spanish Grand Prix. Nieto also took the lead in the championship standings from de Puniet and Franco Battaini.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, 250cc class
Nieto then won the following race at Le Mans before Melandri won the next three races and overtook the championship lead from Nieto after the Dutch TT. Melandri continued his streak to six consecutive wins and extended his lead in the standings to 37 points after the Czech Republic Grand Prix.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, 250cc class
Nieto won the Portuguese Grand Prix for Aprilia's tenth consecutive victory. Nieto, who crashed in lap 13, recovered from seventh position to win the rain-soaked race over Melandri. Aprilia's winning streak was broken when Yamaha's Sebastián Porto won the Rio de Janeiro Grand Prix under wet race condition. Rookie Toni Elías won the following race at Motegi after a last-lap battle with Melandri. Melandri finished second and increase his lead over Nieto in the championship standings to 52 points.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, 250cc class
With 52 points lead and three races to go, Melandri only need to finish in front of Nieto in the Malaysian Grand Prix to clinch the championship. However, he suffered a mechanical failure on the first lap, while Nieto won the race to reduce the gap to 27 points. Melandri finally clinched the 250cc title in the Australian Grand Prix with a close win over Nieto. They fought until the last lap and Melandri won the race with just 0.007 second gap at the finish line. Melandri became the youngest 250cc world champion at the age of 20 years and 74 days.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, 250cc class
Melandri ended the season with 298 points from nine race wins, three second-place finishes and one fourth-place finish. Nieto finished second in the standings with 241 points and four wins, followed Honda's Roberto Rolfo and rookie Toni Elías with 219 and 178 points respectively. Elías, who recorded one race win and four further podium finishes, was named as the Rookie of the Year. Aprilia won the constructors championship with 382 points and 14 race wins from Melandri, Nieto and Elías. Honda finished second in the standings with 244 points but failed to record any race win. Yamaha, who won two races courtesy of Miyazaki and Porto's wins in the wet, finished third with 211 points.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, 125cc class
The 125cc entry list was headlined by defending champion Manuel Poggiali and two-time championship runners-up Youichi Ui and Noboru Ueda. There were five other riders who have previously won a 125cc race: Masao Azuma, Lucio Cecchinello, Stefano Perugini, Simone Sanna and Arnaud Vincent.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, 125cc class
Arnaud Vincent, who returned to Aprilia after a year with Honda, won the opening race at Suzuka under wet condition. He then extended his lead in the championship with two second places in the second and third race behind Manuel Poggiali and Lucio Cecchinello respectively. In the following race at Le Mans, Cecchinello won his second successive race ahead of Poggiali, while Vincent finished fourth. Poggiali then took over the championship lead from Vincent after winning the Italian Grand Prix. Poggiali won the following race at Catalunya with a late overtake at the finish line over Spanish teenager Dani Pedrosa. Two weeks later, Pedrosa bounced back to win his first ever race in the 2002 Dutch TT, with Poggiali finishing in second place.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, 125cc class
Vincent, who led the championship in the first four races, returned to the top of the podium with two consecutive wins at Donington Park and Sachsenring. After finishing third behind Cecchinello and Pedrosa at Brno, Vincent won the wet Portuguese Grand Prix and retook the championship lead from Poggiali. Honda riders, Masao Azuma and Pedrosa, won the following two races at Rio de Janeiro and Motegi while Poggiali reduced Vincent's lead to just eight points courtesy of two podium finishes and Vincent's mechanical problem at Motegi.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, 125cc class
Vincent extended his lead by winning the Malaysian Grand Prix while Poggiali finished in fourth. However, Poggiali won the following race at Phillip Island while Vincent finished in fourth to reduce the lead back to eight points. In the last race of the season at Valencia, Vincent finished second behind Pedrosa to clinch the 125cc title while Poggiali finished in seventh place.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Season summary, 125cc class
Vincent ended the season with 273 points and five race wins, 19 points ahead of defending champion Poggiali who scored 254 points and four race wins. Pedrosa and Cecchinello finished third and fourth in the standings with three wins each. The Rookie of the Year title was won by Finnish rider Mika Kallio who scored 78 points with the Red Devil Honda team. Aprilia won the constructors championship with 341 points and eight race wins from Vincent and Cecchinello. Honda finished second in the standings with 285 points and four wins from Pedrosa and Azuma while Gilera finished third with 254 points and three wins from Poggiali.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, 2002 Grand Prix season calendar
On 18 October 2001, the FIM confirmed the 2002 calendar. On 4 December 2001, the FIM confirmed that the dates of the Rio and Valencian Community Grands Prix had swapped places.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, 2002 Grand Prix season calendar
The following sixteen Grands Prix were scheduled to take place:


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Regulation changes
The following changes are made to the regulation for the 2002 season:


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Participants, MotoGP participants
FIM released a 20-rider entry list on 13 March 2002. Àlex Crivillé, who was listed on the entry list, was replaced by Pere Riba at the Antena 3 Yamaha d'Antin team before the start of the season.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Participants, 250cc participants
The FIM released a 25-rider entry list on 13 March 2002. Alex Hofmann, who was listed on the entry list, withdrew before the start of the season.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Participants, 125cc participants
FIM released a 33-rider entry list on 13 March 2002.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Standings, MotoGP riders' standings
Points are awarded to the top fifteen finishers. A rider has to finish the race to earn points.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Standings, 250cc riders' standings
Points are awarded to the top fifteen finishers. A rider has to finish the race to earn points.


2002 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, Standings, 125cc riders' standings
Points are awarded to the top fifteen finishers. A rider has to finish the race to earn points.


2002 Grand Prix of Mosport
The 2002 mail2web.com Grand Prix of Mosport was a sports car racing event held at Mosport International Raceway near Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada from August 16 to the 18, 2002. The race was the seventh round of the 2002 American Le Mans Series season, and was the 17th IMSA sanctioned sports car race held at the facility.


2002 Grand Prix of Mosport, Race
The overall race was won by Audi Sport North America's Audi R8 driven by Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello for their third win of the season. Johnny Herbert and Stefan Johansson brought the Champion Racing Audi R8 home for second, while Max Angelelli and JJ Lehto produced Team Cadillac's first podium since 2001 in the Cadillac Northstar LMP02.


2002 Grand Prix of Mosport, Race
The LMP 675 class was won by Team Bucknum Racing's Pilbeam MP84 driven by Jeff Bucknum, Chris McMurry and Bryan Willman. Ontario native and Mosport veteran Ron Fellows along with Corvette Racing teammate Johnny O'Connell drove the Chevrolet Corvette C5-R to victory in the GTS class. The Racer's Group Porsche 911 GT3-RS driven by Kevin Buckler and Brian Cunningham took the GT class win.


2002 Grand Prix of Mosport, Race
The race attracted a crowd of 30,000 and was broadcast on NBC Sports with Rick Benjamin and Bill Adam calling the race.


2002 Grand Prix of Sonoma
The 2002 Grand Prix of Sonoma was the second round of the 2002 American Le Mans Series season. It took place at Infineon Raceway, California, on May 19, 2002.


2002 Grand Prix of Sonoma, Official results
† - #0 Team Olive Garden was disqualified for failing post-race technical inspection. The car used an illegal air restrictor


2002 Grand Prix of Washington D.C.
The 2002 Cadillac Grand Prix of Washington, D.C. was the fifth round of the 2002 American Le Mans Series season. It took place in a 1.66 mi (2.67 km) temporary street circuit set around the streets and parking lot adjacent to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington, D.C., on July 21, 2002.


2002 Grand Prix of Washington D.C.
The venue was not renewed for another season due to complaints from neighbors about noise and the race was the only event of its kind held in Washington. The event was supposed to be a recurring event, as the planners entered into a 10-year contract with the city. Before the 2002 Grand Prix, Washington had not been home to an auto racing event for 80 years. However, nine years later in 2011, nearby Baltimore hosted an American Le Mans Series grand prix event, the Baltimore Grand Prix, which took place in the Inner Harbor area of the city along the waterfront, which would be renewed as a site of future events.


2002 Grand Valley State Lakers football team
The 2002 Grand Valley State Lakers football team was an American football team that won the 2002 NCAA Division II national championship.


2002 Grand Valley State Lakers football team
The team represented the Grand Valley State University in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) during the 2002 NCAA Division II football season. In their 12th season under head coach Brian Kelly, the Lakers compiled a 14–0 record (9–0 against conference opponents), outscored opponents by a total of 654 to 231, and won the GLIAC championship. The team advanced to the playoffs and won the national championship by defeating Valdosta State in the championship game.


2002 Grand Valley State Lakers football team
The team played its home games at Lubbers Stadium in Allendale Charter Township, Michigan.


2002 Great Yarmouth Borough Council election
The 2002 Great Yarmouth Borough Council election took place on 2 May 2002 to elect members of Great Yarmouth Borough Council in Norfolk, England. One third of the council was up for election and the Conservative Party stayed in overall control of the council.


2002 Greek local elections
The 2002 Greek local elections elected representatives to Greece's super-prefectures, 54 prefectures, provinces, and approximately 1,033 communities and municipalities.


2002 Greek local elections
The local elections in Greece traditionally occur during the month of October.


2002 Greek local elections
Candidates at local elections do not run under the official name of the party they belong, but form electoral platforms with different names for the purpose.


2002 Greek local elections, Elections, Municipal mayoralties
Candidates supported by New Democracy won in all the three major municipalities, Athens, Thessaloniki and Piraeus.


2002 Greek local elections, Elections, Municipal mayoralties, Municipality of Athens
Dora Bakoyannis, a prominent member of New Democracy, won the election and replaced Dimitris Avramopoulos as mayor of Athens (first term).


2002 Greek local elections, Elections, Municipal mayoralties, Municipality of Piraeus
Christos Agrapidis was reelected mayor of Piraeus (second term) with the support of New Democracy.


2002 Greek local elections, Elections, Municipal mayoralties, Municipality of Thessaloniki
Vasilis Papageorgopoulos was reelected mayor of Thessaloniki with the support of New Democracy.


2002 Greek local elections, Elections, Super-Prefectural elections, Athens-Piraeus
Fofi Gennimata won the mainly ceremonial position of the super-prefect of Athens-Piraeus (first term) supported by PASOK. The coalition supported by New Democracy suffered a setback because of the unpopularity of Ioannis Tzanetakos and because of the candidacy of Georgios Karatzaferis.


2002 Green Bay Packers season
The 2002 season was the Green Bay Packers' 82nd in the National Football League (NFL) and their 84th overall.


2002 Green Bay Packers season
The Packers achieved a 12–4 record in the regular season, before losing in the NFC Wild Card playoffs round to quarterback Brett Favre's former team, the Atlanta Falcons, at Lambeau Field. This marked the first time in NFL history that the Packers had lost at home in the playoffs.


2002 Green Bay Packers season, Background
In 2001, the Packers achieved the franchise's best record since 1997, finishing 12–4 and advancing to the divisional round of the playoffs. There, they lost to the eventual NFC champion St. Louis Rams. During the game, it became clear that the Packers would need wide receivers with greater speed and ability to compete with the conference's best teams. GM Mike Sherman spent the 2002 offseason revamping Green Bay's receiving corps. The team promoted Donald Driver to starter, acquired veteran Terry Glenn from the New England Patriots and drafted Javon Walker in the first round of the 2002 NFL Draft. The influx of new players seemed to position the Packers as one of the strongest contenders in the NFC.


2002 Green Bay Packers season, Season summary
Green Bay started the season with eight wins in their first nine games, led by quarterback Brett Favre and running back Ahman Green. The Packers led the NFC North throughout the year, winning the division by a six-game margin. Green Bay became the first team to win the newly rechristened division, formerly known as the NFC Central. It was the Packers' first division title since 1997, and the team would go on to win the NFC North for three consecutive seasons.


2002 Green Bay Packers season, Season summary
For the first time in years, it appeared that the Packers had a legitimate chance of reaching the Super Bowl. With one game left, Green Bay was 12–3, and a victory away from clinching home field advantage throughout the playoffs. The Packers had never lost a home playoff game in franchise history, had achieved an 8–0 record at home in 2002, and had established a run of Lambeau Field dominance since the Mike Holmgren era. As a result, playing home games at Lambeau Field would seemingly give the Packers a significant advantage in the playoffs.


2002 Green Bay Packers season, Season summary
The final game was on the road against the New York Jets, who beat the Packers handily to win the AFC East division title. The loss which coincided with the Buccaneers winning was a blow to the Packers, who dropped down to the number three seed in the NFC and had an incredibly difficult road to the Super Bowl. Six days later, the Packers were beaten by Michael Vick's Atlanta Falcons, the first home playoff loss in Packers history.


2002 Green Bay Packers season, Season summary
The 2002 season was another memorable year for quarterback Brett Favre. Throughout the season, Favre was a favorite to win his fourth Most Valuable Player award. The Packers' lopsided loss to the Jets in the regular season finale may have swayed voters, as Favre lost the MVP award by merely two votes to Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon.


2002 Green Bay Packers season, Offseason, 2002 NFL draft
In the 2002 NFL draft, the Packers selected 20th overall, drafting future all-pro wide receiver Javon Walker with their first round pick.


2002 Green Bay Packers season, Offseason, 2002 NFL draft
Players highlighted in yellow indicate players selected to the Pro Bowl during their NFL career.


2002 Green Bay Packers season, Regular season, Schedule
The Packers finished 12–4 overall, winning the NFC North crown by a six-game margin.


2002 Greenlandic Men's Football Championship
The 2002 Coca-Cola GM was the 32nd edition of the Greenlandic Men's Football Championship. The final round was held in Ilulissat, Greenland. It was won by Kugsak-45 for the second time in its history.


2002 Greenlandic general election
General elections were held in Greenland on 3 December 2002. The result was victory for the Siumut party, which won 10 of the 31 seats in the Parliament.


2002 Greenwich London Borough Council election
Elections to Greenwich Council were held in May 2002. The whole council was up for election for the first time since the 1998 election.


2002 Greenwich London Borough Council election
Greenwich local elections are held every four years, with the next due in 2006.


2002 Grote Prijs Jef Scherens
The 2002 Grote Prijs Jef Scherens was the 36th edition of the Grote Prijs Jef Scherens cycle race and was held on 1 September 2002. The race started and finished in Leuven. The race was won by Andreas Klier.


2002 Grozny OMON ambush
The 2002 Grozny OMON ambush occurred on April 18, 2002, when Chechen insurgents killed about 8 and wounded two republican OMON special police officers.


2002 Grozny OMON ambush
The ambush occurred just 90 meters from Chechnya's main police headquarters. The first bus in a convoy hit a remote controlled mine, and the militants then opened fire on the line of vehicles from the ruins of a nearby high-rise building.


2002 Grozny OMON ambush
Another version of the attack was presented by Nezavisimaya Gazeta, which claimed there were two connected attacks.


2002 Grozny OMON ambush
The incident preceded by two hours President Vladimir Putin's mid-term state-of-the-nation address, in which he said the "military phase" of the Chechen conflict had been completed.


2002 Grozny truck bombing
The Grozny truck bombing occurred on December 27, 2002, when three Chechen suicide bombers ran vehicles into the heavily guarded republic's government headquarters in the regional capital Grozny.


2002 Grozny truck bombing, Details
The drivers of two vehicles reportedly wore federal military uniforms and carried official passes which allowed them through three successive military checkpoints on their way to the headquarters building. A guard at the fourth and final checkpoint attempted to inspect the vehicles, and began firing on the vehicles as they drove through the checkpoint towards the building.


2002 Grozny truck bombing, Details
The explosion by the equivalent of a ton of dynamite brought down the roof and floors of the four-story building. The first reports said of as few as two dead. Ultimately, Chechen officials said 83 people were killed (48 on the spot) and 210 were injured. Several Chechen administration officials were injured in the attack, including Deputy Prime Minister Zina Batyzheva (seriously wounded) and Chechen Security Council Secretary Rudnik Dudayev. The head of the pro-Russian administration in Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, and his Prime Minister, Mikhail Babich, were not in the building at the time.


2002 Grozny truck bombing, Responsibility
Colonel Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the joint federal forces in Chechnya, said the bombing was organized by Chechen rebel field commanders Abu al-Walid and Shamil Basayev. Basayev claimed responsibility for the planning and execution of the attack, saying that he personally detonated the bomb by remote control.


2002 Grozny truck bombing, Responsibility
Some news reports called the attack an act of terrorism, which with 83 confirmed fatalities, would have been the deadliest terrorist attack in Chechnya. Others described the attackers as militants and rebels and not terrorists.


2002 Guamanian general election
General elections were held in Guam on November 5, 2002 in order to elect the governor, all 15 members of the Legislature and the Federal delegate to the US Congress. There was also a referendum on raising the age at which alcohol could be bought and consumed to 21. The proposal was rejected by voters.


2002 Guamanian general election, Background
The elections to the Legislature and multi-member boards were run via open primary (This following the outlawing of the previous blanket primary) similar to Louisiana.


2002 Guamanian general election, Background
Both the Public Auditor and Consolidated Commission on Utilities were required to be nonpartisan and as such candidates were not allowed to state affiliations or list them on the ballot. In the case of the Auditor, affiliating with a party is grounds for disqualification.


2002 Guangdong–Hong Kong Cup
Guangdong-Hong Kong Cup 2001–02 is the 24th staging of this two-leg competition between Hong Kong and Guangdong.


2002 Guangdong–Hong Kong Cup
The first leg was played in Hong Kong while the second leg was played in Guangzhou.


2002 Guangdong–Hong Kong Cup
Hong Kong captured champion again by winning an aggregate 3–2 against Guangdong.


2002 Guangzhou F.C. season
The 2002 season is the 51st year in Guangzhou Football Club's existence, their 37th season in the Chinese football league and the 11th season in the professional football league.


2002 Guinean legislative election
Parliamentary elections were held in Guinea on 30 June 2002 after several postponements, over two years after it was originally scheduled to be held. The result was a victory for President Lansana Conté's Unity and Progress Party, which won 85 of the 114 seats.


2002 Guinean legislative election
Radical opposition parties, including the Guinean People's Rally (RPG) and the Union of Forces for the Republic, chose to boycott the elections, believing that they would be a farce.


2002 Guinean legislative election, Results
The PUP won all 38 single-member constituency seats and 47 proportional representation seats. In addition to the 85 seats won by the PUP, the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG) and the National Alliance for Progress (ANP), which also supported President Conté, won a few seats (three for the PDG, one for the ANP). The opposition Union for the Progress of Guinea (UPG) disputed the results and refused to take up the three seats that it won.


2002 Gujarat Legislative Assembly election
The 2002 Gujarat Legislative Assembly elections were held in December 2002; they necessitated by the resignation of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the dissolution of the legislative assembly in July 2002, 8 months before its term was due to expire. Modi resigned due to widespread allegations that he had taken insufficient action to prevent the riots that took place a few months earlier. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was led by Modi, with the Indian National Congress being the chief opposition.


2002 Gujarat Legislative Assembly election
As a result of those communal riots, a major issue in the election was the place of Muslims in Gujarati society. Seeking to capitalize on the sentiments stirred up by the riots caused by burning of a train coach containing Hindu kar sevaks (including children) coming from Ayodhya, Modi took a hardline Hindutva stance during the campaign, including the use of Anti- Muslim rhetoric and frequent references to Islamic terrorism.


2002 Gujarat Legislative Assembly election
The legislative assembly of Gujarat is elected from 182 constituencies, which were contested by a total of 21 parties and several hundred independent candidates. The Bharatiya Janata Party won 127 seats, thus achieving an absolute majority in the assembly. Modi was sworn in for a second term as chief minister.


2002 Gujarat riots
The 2002 Gujarat riots, also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence and the Gujarat pogrom, was a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The burning of a train in Godhra on 27 February 2002, which caused the deaths of 58 Hindu pilgrims karsevaks returning from Ayodhya, is cited as having instigated the violence. Following the initial riot incidents, there were further outbreaks of violence in Ahmedabad for three months; statewide, there were further outbreaks of violence against the minority Muslim population of Gujarat for the next one year.


2002 Gujarat riots
According to official figures, the riots ended with 1,044 dead, 223 missing, and 2,500 injured. Of the dead, 790 were Muslim and 254 Hindu. The Concerned Citizens Tribunal Report, estimated that as many as 1,926 may have been killed. Other sources estimated death tolls in excess of 2,000. Many brutal killings and rapes were reported on as well as widespread looting and destruction of property. Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat and later Prime Minister of India, was accused of initiating and condoning the violence, as were police and government officials who allegedly directed the rioters and gave lists of Muslim-owned properties to them.


2002 Gujarat riots
In 2012, Modi was cleared of complicity in the violence by Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court of India. The SIT also rejected claims that the state government had not done enough to prevent the riots. The Muslim community was reported to have reacted with anger and disbelief. In July 2013, allegations were made that the SIT had suppressed evidence. That December, an Indian court upheld the earlier SIT report and rejected a petition seeking Modi's prosecution. In April 2014, the Supreme Court expressed satisfaction over the SIT's investigations in nine cases related to the violence, and rejected a plea contesting the SIT report as "baseless".


2002 Gujarat riots
Though officially classified as a communalist riot, the events of 2002 have been described as a pogrom by many scholars, with some commentators alleging that the attacks had been planned, with the attack on the train was a "staged trigger" for what was actually premeditated violence. Other observers have stated that these events had met the "legal definition of genocide," or referred to them as state terrorism or ethnic cleansing.


2002 Gujarat riots
Instances of mass violence include the Naroda Patiya massacre that took place directly adjacent to a police training camp; the Gulbarg Society massacre where Ehsan Jafri, a former parliamentarian, was among those killed; and several incidents in Vadodara city. Scholars studying the 2002 riots state that they were premeditated and constituted a form of ethnic cleansing, and that the state government and law enforcement were complicit in the violence that occurred.


2002 Gujarat riots, Godhra train burning
On the morning of 27 February 2002, the Sabarmati Express, returning from Ayodhya to Ahmedabad, stopped near the Godhra railway station. The passengers were Hindu pilgrims, returning from Ayodhya after a religious ceremony at the site of the demolished Babri Masjid. An argument erupted between the train passengers and the vendors on the railway platform. The argument became violent and under uncertain circumstances four coaches of the train caught fire with many people trapped inside. In the resulting conflagration, 59 people (nine men, 25 women, and 25 children) burned to death.


2002 Gujarat riots, Godhra train burning
The government of Gujarat set up Gujarat High Court judge K. G. Shah as a one-man commission to look into the incident, but following outrage among families of victims and in the media over Shah's alleged closeness to Modi, retired Supreme Court judge G.T. Nanavati was added as chairman of the now two-person commission.


2002 Gujarat riots, Godhra train burning
In 2003, The Concerned Citizens Tribunal (CCT) concluded that the fire had been an accident. Several other independent commentators have also concluded that the fire itself was almost certainly an accident, saying that the initial cause of the conflagration has never been conclusively determined. Historian Ainslie Thomas Embree stated that the official story of the attack on the train (that it was organized and carried out by people under orders from Pakistan) was entirely baseless.


2002 Gujarat riots, Godhra train burning
The Union government led by the Indian National Congress party in 2005 also set up a committee to probe the incident, headed up by retired Supreme Court judge Umesh Chandra Banerjee. The committee concluded that the fire had begun inside the train and was most likely accidental. However, the Gujarat High Court ruled in 2006 that the matter was outside the jurisdiction of the union government, and that the committee was therefore unconstitutional.


2002 Gujarat riots, Godhra train burning
After six years of going over the details, Nanavati-Mehta Commission submitted its preliminary report which concluded that the fire was an act of arson, committed by a mob of one to two thousand locals. Maulvi Husain Haji Ibrahim Umarji, a cleric in Godhra, and a dismissed Central Reserve Police Force officer named Nanumiyan were presented as the "masterminds" behind the arson. After 24 extensions, the commission submitted its final report on 18 November 2014.


2002 Gujarat riots, Godhra train burning
The findings of the commission were called into question by a video recording released by Tehelka magazine, which showed Arvind Pandya, counsel for the Gujarat government, stating that the findings of the Shah-Nanavati commission would support the view presented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as Shah was "their man" and Nanavati could be bribed.


2002 Gujarat riots, Godhra train burning
In February 2011, the trial court convicted 31 people and acquitted 63 others based on the murder and conspiracy provisions of the Indian Penal Code, saying the incident was a "pre-planned conspiracy." Of those convicted, 11 were sentenced to death and the other 20 to life in prison. Maulvi Umarji, presented by the Nanavati-Shah commission as the prime conspirator, was acquitted along with 62 others accused for lack of evidence.


2002 Gujarat riots, Post-Godhra violence
Following the attack on the train, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) called for a statewide bandh, or strike. Although the Supreme Court had declared such strikes to be unconstitutional and illegal, and despite the common tendency for such strikes to be followed by violence, no action was taken by the state to prevent the strike. The government did not attempt to stop the initial outbreak of violence across the state. Independent reports indicate that the state BJP president Rana Rajendrasinh had endorsed the strike, and that Modi and Rana used inflammatory language which worsened the situation.


2002 Gujarat riots, Post-Godhra violence
Then-Chief Minister Narendra Modi declared that the attack on the train had been an act of terrorism, and not an incident of communal violence. Local newspapers and members of the state government used the statement to incite violence against the Muslim community by claiming, without proof, that the attack on the train was carried out by Pakistan's intelligence agency and that local Muslims had conspired with them to attack Hindus in the state. False stories were also printed by local newspapers which claimed that Muslim people had kidnapped and raped Hindu women.


2002 Gujarat riots, Post-Godhra violence
Numerous accounts describe the attacks on the Muslim community that began on 28 February (the day after the train fire) as highly coordinated with mobile phones and government-issued printouts listing the homes and businesses of Muslims. Attackers arrived in Muslim communities across the region in trucks, wearing saffron robes and khaki shorts, bearing a variety of weapons. In many cases, attackers damaged or burned Muslim-owned or occupied buildings while leaving adjacent Hindu buildings untouched. Although many calls to the police were made from victims, they were told by the police that "we have no orders to save you."


2002 Gujarat riots, Post-Godhra violence
In some cases, the police fired on Muslims who attempted to defend themselves. The rioters used mobile phones to coordinate their attacks. By the end of the day on 28 February a curfew had been declared in 27 towns and cities across the state. A government minister stated that although the circumstances were tense in Baroda and Ahmedabad, the situation was under control, and that the police who had been deployed were enough to prevent any violence. In Baroda the administration imposed a curfew in seven areas of the city.


2002 Gujarat riots, Post-Godhra violence
M. D. Antani, then the deputy superintendent of police, deployed the Rapid Action Force to sensitive areas in Godhra. Gordhan Zadafia, the Minister of State for Home, believed there would be no retaliation from the Hindu community for the train burning. Modi stated that the violence was no longer as intense as it had been and that it would soon be brought under control, and that if the situation warranted it, the police would be supported by deploying the army. A shoot-to-kill order was issued.


2002 Gujarat riots, Post-Godhra violence
However the troop deployment was withheld by the state government until 1 March, when the most severe violence had ended. After more than two months of violence a unanimous vote to authorize central intervention was passed in the upper house of parliament. Members of the opposition made accusations that the government had failed to protect Muslim people in the worst rioting in India in more than 10 years.


2002 Gujarat riots, Post-Godhra violence
It is estimated that 230 mosques and 274 dargahs were destroyed during the violence. For the first time in the history of communal riots Hindu women took part, looting Muslim shops. It is estimated that up to 150,000 people were displaced during the violence. It is estimated that 200 police officers died while trying to control the violence, and Human Rights Watch reported that acts of exceptional heroism were committed by Hindus, Dalits and tribals who tried to protect Muslims from the violence.


2002 Gujarat riots, Attacks on Muslims
In the aftermath of the violence, it became clear that many attacks were focused not only on Muslim populations, but also on Muslim women and children. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch criticised the Indian government and the Gujarat state administration for failure to address the resulting humanitarian condition of victims who fled their homes for relief camps during the violence, the "overwhelming majority of them Muslim." According to Teesta Setalvad on 28 February in the districts of Morjari Chowk and Charodia Chowk in Ahmedabad of all forty people who had been killed by police shooting were Muslim. An international fact-finding committee formed of all women international experts from US, UK, France, Germany and Sri Lanka reported, "sexual violence was being used as a strategy for terrorizing women belonging to minority community in the state."


2002 Gujarat riots, Attacks on Muslims
It is estimated that at least two-hundred and fifty girls and women were gang raped and then burned to death. Children were force fed petrol and then set on fire, pregnant women were gutted and then had their unborn child's body shown to them. In the Naroda Patiya mass grave of ninety-six bodies, forty-six were women. Rioters also flooded homes and electrocuted entire families inside. Violence against women also included them being stripped naked, violated with objects, and then killed.


2002 Gujarat riots, Attacks on Muslims
According to Kalpana Kannabiran the rapes were part of a well-organized, deliberate and pre-planned strategy, and which facts place the violence into the categories of political pogrom and genocide. Other acts of violence against women included acid attacks, beatings and the killing of women who were pregnant. Children were also killed in front of their parents. George Fernandes in a discussion in parliament on the violence caused widespread furor in his defense of the state government, saying that this was not the first time that women had been violated and raped in India.


2002 Gujarat riots, Attacks on Muslims
Children were killed by being burnt alive and those who dug the mass graves described the bodies interred within them as "burned and butchered beyond recognition." Children and infants were speared and held aloft before being thrown into fires. Describing the sexual violence perpetrated against Muslim women and girls, Renu Khanna writes that the survivors reported that it "consisted of forced nudity, mass rapes, gang-rapes, mutilation, insertion of objects into bodies, cutting of breasts, slitting the stomach and reproductive organs, and carving of Hindu religious symbols on women's body parts." The Concerned Citizens' Tribunal, characterised the use of rape "as an instrument for the subjugation and humiliation of a community." Testimony heard by the committee stated that:


2002 Gujarat riots, Attacks on Muslims
A chilling technique, absent in pogroms unleashed hitherto but very much in evidence this time in a large number of cases, was the deliberate destruction of evidence. Barring a few, in most instances of sexual violence, the women victims were stripped and paraded naked, then gang-raped, and thereafter quartered and burnt beyond recognition. . . . The leaders of the mobs even raped young girls, some as young as 11 years old . . . before burning them alive. . . . Even a 20-day-old infant, or a fetus in the womb of its mother, was not spared.


2002 Gujarat riots, Attacks on Muslims
Vandana Shiva stated that "Young boys have been taught to burn, rape and kill in the name of Hindutva."


2002 Gujarat riots, Attacks on Muslims
Dionne Bunsha, writing on the Gulbarg Society massacre and murder of Ehsan Jafri, has said that when Jafri begged the crowd to spare the women, he was dragged into the street and forced to parade naked for refusing to say "Jai Shri Ram." He was then beheaded and thrown onto a fire, after which rioters returned and burned Jafri's family, including two small boys, to death. After the massacre Gulbarg remained in flames for a week.


2002 Gujarat riots, Attacks on Hindus
The Times of India reported that over ten thousand Hindus were displaced during the violence. According to police records, 157 riots after the Godhra incident were started by Muslims. In Mahajan No Vando, a Hindu residential area in Jamalpur, residents reported that Muslim attackers injured approximately twenty-five Hindu residents and destroyed five houses on 1 March. The community head reported that the police responded quickly, but were ineffectual as there were so few of them present to help during the attack. The colony was later visited by Modi on 6 March, who promised the residents that they would be taken care of.


2002 Gujarat riots, Attacks on Hindus
On 17 March, it was reported that Muslims attacked Dalits in the Danilimda area of Ahmedabad. In Himatnagar, a man was reportedly found dead with both his eyes gouged out. The Sindhi Market and Bhanderi Pole areas of Ahmedabad were also reportedly attacked by mobs.


2002 Gujarat riots, Attacks on Hindus
India Today reported on 20 May 2002 that there were sporadic attacks on Hindus in Ahmedabad. On 5 May, Muslim rioters attacked Bhilwas locality in the Shah Alam area. Hindu doctors were asked to stop practicing in Muslim areas after one Hindu doctor was stabbed.


2002 Gujarat riots, Attacks on Hindus
Frontline magazine reported that in Ahmedabad of the 249 bodies recovered by 5 March, thirty were Hindu. Of the Hindus that had been killed, thirteen had died as a result of police action and several others had died while attacking Muslim owned properties. Despite the relatively few attacks by Muslim mobs on Hindu neighbourhoods, twenty-four Muslims were reported to have died in police shootings.


2002 Gujarat riots, Media coverage
The events in Gujarat were the first instance of communal violence in India in the age of 24-hour news coverage and were televised worldwide. This coverage played a central role in the politics of the situation. Media coverage was generally critical of the Hindu right; however, the BJP portrayed the coverage as an assault on the honor of Gujaratis and turned the hostility into an emotive part of their electoral campaign. With the violence receding in April, a peace meeting was arranged at Sabarmati Ashram, a former home of Mahatma Gandhi.


2002 Gujarat riots, Media coverage
Hindutva supporters and police officers attacked almost a dozen journalists. The state government banned television news channels critical of the government's response, and local stations were blocked. Two reporters working for STAR News were assaulted several times while covering the violence. On a return trip from having interviewed Modi when their car was surrounded by a crowd, one of the crowd claimed that they would be killed should they be a member of a minority community.


2002 Gujarat riots, Media coverage
The Editors Guild of India, in its report on media ethics and coverage on the incidents stated that the news coverage was exemplary, with only a few minor lapses. The local newspapers Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar, however, were heavily criticised. The report states that Sandesh had headlines which would "provoke, communalize and terrorize people. The newspaper also used a quote from a VHP leader as a headline, "Avenge with blood."


2002 Gujarat riots, Media coverage
The report stated that Gujarat Samachar had played a role in increasing the tensions but did not give all of its coverage over to "hawkish and inflammatory reportage in the first few weeks". The paper carried reports to highlight communal harmony. Gujarat Today was given praise for showing restraint and for the balanced reportage of the violence. Critical reporting on the Gujarat government's handling of the situation helped bring about the Indian government's intervention in controlling the violence. The Editors Guild rejected the charge that graphic news coverage aggravated the situation, saying that the coverage exposed the "horrors" of the riots as well as the "supine if not complicit" attitude of the state, helping to propel remedial action.


2002 Gujarat riots, Allegations of state complicity
Many scholars and commentators have accused the state government of being complicit in the attacks, either in failing to exert any effort to quell the violence or for actively planning and executing the attacks themselves. The United States Department of State ultimately banned Narendra Modi from travelling to the United States due to his alleged role in the attacks. These allegations center around several ideas. First, the state did little to quell the violence, with attacks continuing well through the Spring. The historian Gyanendra Pandey described these attacks as state terrorism, saying that they were not riots but "organized political massacres." According to Paul Brass the only conclusion from the evidence which is available points to a methodical Anti- Muslim pogrom which was carried out with exceptional brutality coordination.


2002 Gujarat riots, Allegations of state complicity
The media has described the attacks as state terrorism rather than "communal riots" due to the lack of state intervention. Many politicians downplayed the incidents, claiming that the situation was under control. One minister who spoke with Rediff.com stated that though the circumstances were tense in Baroda and Ahmedabad, the situation was under control, and that the police who had been deployed were enough to prevent any violence. The deputy superintendent of police stated that the Rapid Action Force had been deployed to sensitive areas in Godhra.


2002 Gujarat riots, Allegations of state complicity
Gordhan Zadafia, the Minister of State for Home, stated that he believed there would be no retaliation from the Hindu community. Once troops were airlifted in on 1 March, Modi stated that the violence was no longer as intense as it had been and that it would soon be brought under control. The violence continued for 3 months with no intervention from the federal government till May. Local and state-level politicians were seen leading violent mobs, restraining the police and arranging the distribution of weapons, leading investigative reports to conclude that the violence was "engineered and launched."


2002 Gujarat riots, Allegations of state complicity
Throughout the violence, attacks were made in full view of police stations and police officers who did not intervene. In many instances, police joined the mobs in perpetrating violence. At one Muslim locality, of the twenty-nine deaths, sixteen were caused by police firing into the locality. Some rioters even had printouts of voter registration lists, allowing them to selectively target Muslim properties. Selective targeting of properties was shown by the destruction of the offices of the Muslim Wakf board which was located within the confines of the high security zone and just 500 meters from the office of the chief minister.


2002 Gujarat riots, Allegations of state complicity
According to Scott W. Hibbard, the violence had been planned far in advance, and that similar to other instances of communal violence the Bajrang Dal, the VHP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) all took part in the attacks. Following the attack on the train the VHP called for a statewide bandh (strike), and the state took no action to prevent this.


2002 Gujarat riots, Allegations of state complicity
The Concerned Citizens Tribunal (CCT) report includes testimony of the then Gujarat BJP minister Haren Pandya (since murdered), who testified about an evening meeting convened by Modi the evening of the train burning. At this meeting, officials were instructed not to obstruct the Hindu rage following the incident. The report also highlighted a second meeting, held in Lunawada village of Panchmahal district, attended by state ministers Ashok Bhatt, and Prabhatsinh Chauhan, among other BJP and RSS leaders, where "detailed plans were made on the use of kerosene and petrol for arson and other methods of killing." The Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind claimed in 2002 that some regional Congress workers collaborated with the perpetrators of the violence.


2002 Gujarat riots, Allegations of state complicity
Dipankar Gupta believes that the state and police were clearly complicit in the violence, but that some officers were outstanding in the performance of their duties, such as Himanshu Bhatt and Rahul Sharma. Sharma was reported to have said "I don't think any other job would have allowed me to save so many lives." Human Rights Watch has reported on acts of exceptional heroism by Hindus, Dalits and tribals who tried to protect Muslims from the violence.


2002 Gujarat riots, Allegations of state complicity
In response to allegations of state involvement, Gujarat government spokesman, Bharat Pandya, told the BBC that the rioting was a spontaneous Hindu backlash fueled by widespread anger against Muslims. He said "Hindus are frustrated over the role of Muslims in the on-going violence in Indian-administered Kashmir and other parts of India."


2002 Gujarat riots, Allegations of state complicity
In support of this, the US Ambassador at-large for International Religious Freedom, John Hanford, expressed concern over religious intolerance in Indian politics and said that while the rioters may have been aided by state and local officials, he did not believe that the BJP-led central government was involved in inciting the riots.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions
Prosecution of the perpetrators of the violence hampered by witnesses being bribed or intimidated and the perpetrators' names being deleted from the charge sheets. Local judges were also biased. After more than two years of acquittals, the Supreme Court of India stepped in, transferring key cases to the Bombay High Court and ordering the police to reopen two thousand cases that had been previously closed. The Supreme Court also lambasted the Gujarat government as "modern day Neros" who looked elsewhere when innocent women and children were burning and then interfered with prosecution. Following this direction, police identified nearly 1,600 cases for re-investigation, arrested 640 accused and launched investigations against forty police officers for their failures.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions
In March 2008, the Supreme Court ordered the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to reinvestigate the Godhra train burning case and key cases of post-Godhra violence. The former CBI Director R. K. Raghavan was appointed to chair the Team. Christophe Jaffrelot notes that the SIT was not as independent as commonly believed. Other than Raghavan, half of the six members of the team were recruited from the Gujarat police, and the Gujarat High Court was still responsible for appointing judicial officers.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions
The SIT made efforts to appoint independent prosecutors but some of them resigned due to their inability to function. No efforts were made to protect the witnesses and Raghavan himself was said to be an "absentee investigator," who spent only a few days every month in Gujarat, with the investigations being conducted by the remainder of the team.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions
As of April 2013, 249 convictions had been secured of 184 Hindus and 65 Muslims. Thirty-one of the Muslim convictions were for the massacre of Hindus in Godhra.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Best Bakery case
The Best Bakery murder trial received wide attention after witnesses retracted testimony in court and all of the accused were acquitted. The Indian Supreme Court, acting on a petition by social activist Teesta Setalvad, ordered a retrial outside Gujarat in which nine accused were found guilty in 2006. A key witness, Zaheera Sheikh, who repeatedly changed her testimony during the trials and the petition was found guilty of perjury.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Bilkis Bano case
After police dismissed the case against her assailants, Bilkis Bano approached the National Human Rights Commission of India and petitioned the Supreme Court seeking a reinvestigation. The Supreme Court granted the motion, directing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the investigation. CBI appointed a team of experts from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) Delhi and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) under the guidance and leadership of Professor T. D. Dogra of AIIMS to exhume the mass graves to established the identity and cause of death of victims.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Bilkis Bano case
The team successfully located and exhumed the remains of victims. The trial of the case was transferred out of Gujarat and the central government was directed to appoint a public prosecutor. Charges were filed in a Mumbai court against nineteen people as well as six police officials and a government doctor over their role in the initial investigations. In January 2008, eleven men were sentenced to life imprisonment for rapes and murders and a policeman was convicted of falsifying evidence.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Bilkis Bano case
The Bombay High Court upheld the life imprisonment of eleven men convicted for the gang rape of Bilkis Bano and murder of her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots on 8 May 2017. The court also set aside the acquittal of the remaining seven accused in the case, including Gujarat police officers and doctors of a government hospital, who were charged with suppressing and tampering with evidence. Later, the final verdict came on 23 April 2019 as the Supreme Court ordered the Gujarat government to pay Bilkis Yakoob Rasool Bano ₹50 lakh as compensation, a government job and housing in the area of her choice.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Avdhootnagar case
In 2005, the Vadodara fast-track court acquitted 108 people accused of murdering two youths during a mob attack on a group of displaced Muslims returning under police escort to their homes in Avdhootnagar. The court passed strictures against the police for failing to protect the people under their escort and failing to identify the attackers they had seen.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Danilimda case
Nine people were convicted of killing a Hindu man and injuring another during group clashes in Danilimda, Ahmedabad on 12 April 2005, while twenty-five others were acquitted.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Eral case
Eight people, including a VHP leader and a member of the BJP, were convicted for the murder of seven members of a family and the rape of two minor girls in the village of Eral in Panchmahal district.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Pavagadh and Dhikva case
Fifty-two people from Pavagadh and Dhikva villages in Panchmahal district were acquitted of rioting charges for lack of evidence.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Godhra train-burning case
A stringent anti-terror law, the POTA, was used by the Gujarat government to charge 131 people in connection to the Godhra train fire, but not invoked in prosecuting any of the accused in the post-Godhra riots. In 2005 the POTA Review Committee set up by the central government to review the application of the law opined that the Godhra accused should not have been tried under the provisions of POTA.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Godhra train-burning case
In February 2011 a special fast track court convicted thirty-one Muslims for the Godhra train burning incident and the conspiracy for the crime


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Dipda Darwaza case
On 9 November 2011, a court in Ahmedabad sentenced thirty-one Hindus to life imprisonment for murdering dozens of Muslims by burning a building in which they took shelter. Forty-one other Hindus were acquitted of murder charges due to a lack of evidence. Twenty-two further people were convicted for attempted murder on 30 July 2012, while sixty-one others were acquitted.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Naroda Patiya Massacre
On 29 July 2012, an Indian court convicted thirty people in the Naroda Patiya massacre case for their involvement in the attacks. The convicted included former state minister Maya Kodnani and Hindu leader Babu Bajrangi. The court case began in 2009, and over three hundred people (including victims, witnesses, doctors, and journalists) testified before the court. For the first time, the verdict acknowledged the role of a politician in inciting Hindu mobs.


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Naroda Patiya Massacre
Activists asserted that the verdict would embolden the opponent of Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of Gujarat, in the crucial run-up to state elections later that year, when Modi would be seeking a third term (The BJP and he eventually went on to win the elections). Modi refused to apologise and denied that the government had a role in the riots. Twenty-nine people were acquitted during the verdict. Teesta Setalvad said "For the first time, this judgment actually goes beyond neighborhood perpetrators and goes up to the political conspiracy. The fact that convictions have gone that high means the conspiracy charge has been accepted and the political influencing of the mobs has been accepted by the judge. This is a huge victory for justice."


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Perjury cases
In April 2009, the SIT submitted before the Court that Teesta Setalvad had cooked up cases of violence to spice up the incidents. The SIT which is headed by former CBI director, R. K. Raghavan has said that false witnesses were tutored to give evidence about imaginary incidents by Setalvad and other NGOs. The SIT charged her of "cooking up macabre tales of killings."


2002 Gujarat riots, Criminal prosecutions, Perjury cases
The court was told that twenty-two witnesses, who had submitted identical affidavits before various courts relating to riot incidents, were questioned by SIT and it was found that the witnesses had not actually witnessed the incidents and they were tutored and the affidavits were handed over to them by Setalvad.


2002 Gujarat riots, Inquiries
There were more than sixty investigations by national and international bodies many of which concluded that the violence was supported by state officials. A report from the National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) stated that res ipsa loquitur applied as the state had comprehensively failed to protect uphold the rights of the people as set out in the Constitution of India. It faulted the Gujarat government for failure of intelligence, failure to take appropriate action, and failure to identify local factors and players. NHRC also expressed "widespread lack of faith" in the integrity of the investigation of major incidents of violence. It recommended that five critical cases should be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).


2002 Gujarat riots, Inquiries
The US State Department's International Religious Freedom Report quoted the NHRC as concluding that the attacks had been premeditated, that state government officials were complicit, and that there was evidence of police not acting during the assaults on Muslims. The US State Department also cited how Gujarat's high school textbooks described Hitler's "charismatic personality" and the "achievements of Nazism." US Congressmen John Conyers and Joe Pitts subsequently introduced a resolution in the House condemning the conduct of Modi for inciting religious persecution.


2002 Gujarat riots, Inquiries
They stated that Modi's government had a role in "promoting the attitudes of racial supremacy, racial hatred and the legacy of Nazism through his government's support of school textbooks in which Nazism is glorified." They also wrote a letter to the US State Department asking it deny Modi a visa to the United States.


2002 Gujarat riots, Inquiries
The CCT consisting of eminent high court judges released a detailed three-volume report on the riots. Headed by retired Supreme Court Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer, the CCT released its findings in 2003 and stated that, contrary to the government allegation of a conspiracy in Godhra, the incident had not been pre-planned and there was no evidence to indicate otherwise.


2002 Gujarat riots, Inquiries
On the statewide riots, the CCT reported that, several days before the Godhra incident, which was the excuse used for the attacks, homes belonging to Hindus in Muslim areas had been marked with pictures of Hindu deities or saffron flags, and that this had been done to prevent any accidental assaults on Hindu homes or businesses. The CCT investigation also discovered evidence that the VHP and the Bajrang Dal had training camps in which people were taught to view Muslims as an enemy. These camps were backed and supported by the BJP and RSS. They also reported that "The complicity of the state government is obvious. And, the support of the central government to the state government in all that it did is also by now a matter of common knowledge."


2002 Gujarat riots, Inquiries
The state government commissioned J. G. Shah to conduct, what became, a controversial one man inquiry into the Godhra incident, its credibility was questioned and the NHRC and the National Minorities Commission requested that a sitting judge from the supreme court be appointed. The supreme court overturned the findings by Shah stating, "this judgement is not based on the understanding of any evidence, but on imagination."


2002 Gujarat riots, Inquiries
Early in 2003, the state government of Gujarat set up the Nanavati-Shah commission to investigate the entire incident, from the initial one at Godhra to the ensuing violence. The commission was caught up in controversy from the beginning. Activists and members of the opposition insisted on a judicial commission to be set up and headed by a sitting judge rather than a retired one from the high court. The state government refused. Within a few months Nanavati, before hearing any testimony declared there was no evidence of lapses by either the police or government in their handling of the violence.


2002 Gujarat riots, Inquiries
In 2008 Shah died and was replaced by Justice Akshay Mehta, another retired high court judge. Metha's appointment was controversial as he was the judge who allowed Babu Bajrangi, a prime suspect in the massacre Naroda Patiya massacre, to be released on bail. In July 2013 the commission was given its 20th extension, and Mukul Sinha of the civil rights group Jan Sangharsh Manch said of the delays "I think the Commission has lost its significance and it now seems to be awaiting the outcome of the 2014 Lok Sabha election."


2002 Gujarat riots, Inquiries
In 2007 Tehelka in an undercover operation had said that the Nanavati-Shah commission had relied on "manufactured evidence." Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal has claimed that they had taped witnesses who stated they had given false testimony after they had been bribed by the Gujarati police force. Tehelka also recorded Ranjitsinh Patel where he stated that he and Prabhatsinh Patel had been paid fifty thousand rupees each to amend earlier statements and to identify some Muslims as conspirators. According to B G Verghese, the Tehelka expose was far too detailed to have been fake.


2002 Gujarat riots, Inquiries
A fact finding mission by the Sahmat organisation led by Dr. Kamal Mitra Chenoy concluded that the violence was more akin to ethnic cleansing or a pogrom rather than communal violence. The report said that the violence surpassed other periods of communal violence such as in 1969, 1985, 1989, and 1992 not only in the total loss of life, but also in the savagery of the attacks.


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Rioting in Gujarat
There was widespread destruction of property. 273 dargahs, 241 mosques, 19 temples, and 3 churches were either destroyed or damaged. It is estimated that Muslim property losses were "100,000 houses, 1,100 hotels, 15,000 businesses, 3,000 handcarts and 5,000 vehicles." Overall, 27,780 people were arrested. Of them, 11,167 were arrested for criminal behavior (3,269 Muslim, 7,896 Hindu) and 16,615 were arrested as a preventive measure (2,811 Muslim, 13,804 Hindu). The CCT tribunal reported that 90 percent of those arrested were almost immediately granted bail, even if they had been arrested on suspicion of murder or arson. There were also media reports that political leaders gave those being released public welcomes. This contradicts the state government's statement during the violence that: "Bail applications of all accused persons are being strongly defended and rejected."


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Police transfers
According to R. B. Sreekumar, police officers who followed the rule of law and helped prevent the riots from spreading were punished by the Modi government. They were subjected to disciplinary proceedings and transfers with some having to leave the state. Sreekumar also claims it is common practice to intimidate whistleblowers and otherwise subvert the justice system, and that the state government issued "unconstitutional directives", with officials asking him to kill Muslims involved in rioting or disrupting a Hindu religious event. The Gujarat government denied his allegations, claiming that they were "baseless" and based on malice because Sreekumar had not been promoted.


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Further violence promotion by extremist groups
Following the violence Bal Thackeray then leader of the Hindu nationalist group Shiv Sena said "Muslims are a cancer to this country. Cancer is an incurable disease. Its only cure is operation. O Hindus, take weapons in your hands and remove this cancer from your roots." Pravin Togadia, international president of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), said "All Hindutva opponents will get the death sentence" and Ashok Singhal, the then president of the VHP, has said that the violence in Gujarat was a "successful experiment" which would be repeated nationwide.


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Further violence promotion by extremist groups
The militant group Indian Mujahideen have carried out attacks in revenge and to also act as a deterrent against further instances of mass violence against Muslims. They also claimed to have carried out the 2008 Delhi bombings in revenge for mistreatment of Muslims, referencing the destruction of the Babri Mosque and the violence in Gujarat 2002. In September 2002 there was an attack on the Hindu temple of Akshardham, gunmen carried letters on their persons which suggested that it was a revenge attack for the violence that Muslims had undergone. In August 2002 Shahid Ahmad Bakshi, an operative for the militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba planned to assassinate Modi, Pravin Togadia of the VHP, and other members of the right wing nationalist movement to avenge the 2002 Gujarat violence.


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Further violence promotion by extremist groups
Human Rights Watch has accused the state of orchestrating a cover-up of their role in the violence. Human rights activists and Indian solicitors have urged that legislation be passed so that "communal violence is treated as genocide." Following the violence thousands of Muslims were fired from their places of work, and those who tried to return home had to endure an economic and social boycott.


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Organisational changes and political reactions
On 3 May 2002, former Punjab police chief Kanwar Pal Singh Gill was appointed as security adviser to Modi. Defending the Modi administration in the Rajya Sabha against charges of genocide, BJP spokesman V. K. Malhotra said that the official toll of 254 Hindus, killed mostly by police fire, indicates how the state authorities took effective steps to curb the violence. Opposition parties and three coalition partners of the BJP-led central government demanded the dismissal of Modi for failing to contain the violence, with some calling for the removal of Union Home Minister L. K. Advani as well.


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Organisational changes and political reactions
On 18 July, Modi asked the Governor of Gujarat to dissolve the state assembly and call fresh elections. The Indian Election Commission ruled out early elections citing the prevailing law and order situation and held them in December 2002. The BJP capitalised on the violence using posters and videotapes of the Godhra incident and painting Muslims as terrorists. The party gained in all the constituencies affected by the communal violence and a number of candidates implicated in the violence were elected, which in turn ensured freedom from prosecution.


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Media investigation
In 2004, the weekly magazine Tehelka published a hidden camera exposé alleging that BJP legislator Madhu Srivastava bribed Zaheera Sheikh, a witness in the Best Bakery case. Srivastava denied the allegation, and an inquiry committee appointed by the Supreme Court drew an "adverse inference" from the video footage, though it failed to uncover evidence that money was actually paid. In a 2007 expose, the magazine released hidden camera footage of several members of the BJP, VHP and the Bajrang Dal admitting their role in the riots.


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Media investigation
Among those featured in the tapes was the special counsel representing the Gujarat government before the Nanavati-Shah Commission, Arvind Pandya, who resigned from his post after the release. While the report was criticised by some as being politically motivated, some newspapers said the revelations simply reinforced what was common knowledge. However, the report contradicted official records with regard to Modi's alleged visit to Naroda Patiya and a local police superintendent's location. The Gujarat government blocked telecast of cable news channels broadcasting the expose, a move strongly condemned by the Editors Guild of India.


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Media investigation
Taking a stand decried by the media and other rights groups, Nafisa Hussain, a member of the National Commission for Women accused organisations and the media of needlessly exaggerating the plight of women victims of the riots, which was strongly disputed as Gujarat did not have a State Commission for Women to act on the ground. The newspaper Tribune reported that "The National Commission for Women has reluctantly agreed to the complicity of Gujarat Government in the communal violence in the state." The tone of their most recent report was reported by the Tribune as "lenient".


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Special Investigation Team
In April 2012, the three-member SIT formed in 2008 by the Supreme Court as a response to a petition by one of the aggrieved in the Gulmerg massacre absolved Modi of any involvement in the Gulberg massacre, arguably the worst episode of the riots.


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Special Investigation Team
In his report, Raju Ramachandran, the amicus curiae for the case, strongly disagreed with a key conclusion of R. K. Raghavan who led SIT: that IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt was not present at a late-night meeting of top Gujarat cops held at the Chief Minister's residence in the wake of 27 February 2002 Godhra carnage. It has been Bhatt's claim—made in an affidavit before the apex court and in statements to the SIT and the amicus—that he was present at the meeting where Modi allegedly said Hindus must be allowed to carry out retaliatory violence against Muslims.


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Special Investigation Team
Ramachandran was of the opinion that Modi could be prosecuted for alleged statements he had made. He said there was no clinching material available in the pre-trial stage to disbelieve Bhatt, whose claim could be tested only in court. "Hence, it cannot be said, at this stage, that Shri Bhatt should be disbelieved and no further proceedings should be taken against Shri Modi."


2002 Gujarat riots, Aftermath, Special Investigation Team
Further, R. K. Shah, the public prosecutor in the Gulbarg Society massacre, resigned because he found it impossible to work with the SIT and further stated that "Here I am collecting witnesses who know something about a gruesome case in which so many people, mostly women and children huddled in Jafri's house, were killed and I get no cooperation. The SIT officers are unsympathetic towards witnesses, they try to browbeat them and don't share evidence with the prosecution as they are supposed to do." Teesta Setalvad referred to the stark inequalities between the SIT team's lawyers who are paid 9 lakh rupees per day and the government prosecutors who are paid a pittance. SIT officers have been paid Rs. 1.5 lakh per month for their participation in the SIT since 2008.


2002 Gujarat riots, Diplomatic ban
Modi's failure to stop anti-Muslim violence led to a de facto travel ban imposed by the United Kingdom, United States, and several European nations, as well as the boycott of his provincial government by all but the most junior officials. In 2005, Modi was refused a US visa as someone held responsible for a serious violation of religious freedom. Modi had been invited to the US to speak before the Asian-American Hotel Owners Association. A petition was set up by Coalition Against Genocide led by Angana Chatterji and signed by 125 academics requesting that Modi be refused a diplomatic visa.


2002 Gujarat riots, Diplomatic ban
Hindu groups in the US also protested and planned to demonstrate in cities in Florida. A resolution was submitted by John Conyers and Joseph R. Pitts in the House of Representatives which condemned Modi for inciting religious persecution. Pitts also wrote to then United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requesting Modi be refused a visa. On 19 March Modi was denied a diplomatic visa and his tourist visa was revoked.


2002 Gujarat riots, Diplomatic ban
As Modi rose to prominence in India, the UK and the EU lifted their bans in October 2012 and March 2013, respectively, and after his election as prime minister he was invited to Washington, in the US.


2002 Gujarat riots, Relief efforts
By 27 March 2002, nearly one-hundred thousand displaced people moved into 101 relief camps. This swelled to over 150,000 in 104 camps the next two weeks. The camps were run by community groups and NGOs, with the government committing to provide amenities and supplementary services. Drinking water, medical help, clothing and blankets were in short supply at the camps. At least another 100 camps were denied government support, according to a camp organiser, and relief supplies were prevented from reaching some camps due to fears that they may be carrying arms.


2002 Gujarat riots, Relief efforts
Reactions to the relief effort were further critical of the Gujarat government. Relief camp organisers alleged that the state government was coercing refugees to leave relief camps, with twenty-five thousand people made to leave eighteen camps which were shut down. Following government assurances that further camps would not be shut down, the Gujarat High Court bench ordered that camp organizers be given a supervisory role to ensure that assurances were met.


2002 Gujarat riots, Relief efforts
On 9 September 2002, Modi mentioned during a speech that he was against running relief camps. In January 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the government to hand over the speech and other documents to the SIT.


2002 Gujarat riots, Relief efforts
What brother, should we run relief camps? Should I start children-producing centres there? We want to achieve progress by pursuing the policy of family planning with determination. Ame paanch, Amara pachhees! (we are five and we have twenty-five) . . . Can't Gujarat implement family planning? Whose inhibitions are coming in our way? Which religious sect is coming in the way? . . ."


2002 Gujarat riots, Relief efforts
On 23 May 2008, the Union Government announced a 3.2 billion rupee (US$80 million) relief package for the victims of the riots. In contrast, Amnesty International's annual report on India in 2003 claimed the "Gujarat government did not actively fulfill its duty to provide appropriate relief and rehabilitation to the survivors". The Gujarat government initially offered compensation payments of 200,000 rupees to the families of those who died in the Godhra train fire and 100,000 rupees to the families of those who died in the subsequent riots, which local Muslims took to be discriminatory.


2002 Gulf Club Champions Cup
The GCC Champions League (Arabic: دوري أبطال الخليج للأندية), is an annually organized football league tournament for club of the Arabian Peninsula.


2002 Gulf Club Champions Cup
The 2002 edition was the 19th time that it was organised and was won by Saudi Arabian side Al-Ahli for the second time.


2002 HEW Cyclassics
The 2002 HEW Cyclassics was the seventh edition of the HEW Cyclassics cycle race and was held on 4 August 2002. The race started and finished in Hamburg. The race was won by Johan Museeuw.


2002 Haarlem Baseball Week
The 2002 Haarlem Baseball Week was an international baseball competition held at the Pim Mulier Stadium in Haarlem, the Netherlands from July 19–28, 2002. It was the 21st edition of the tournament and featured teams from Chinese Taipei, Cuba, Japan, Netherlands, South Africa and United States.


2002 Haarlem Baseball Week
In the end, the team from the United States won their second straight and third tournament as the national team.


2002 Haarlem Baseball Week, Group stage, Standings
Chinese Taipei is the official IBAF designation for the team representing the state officially referred to as the Republic of China, more commonly known as Taiwan. (See also political status of Taiwan for details.)


2002 Haarlem Baseball Week, Group stage, Game results
Regarding a friendly match, the results didn't affect the standings.


2002 Halton Borough Council election
The 2002 Halton Borough Council election took place on 2 May 2002 to elect members of Halton Unitary Council in Cheshire, England. One third of the council was up for election and the Labour party stayed in overall control of the council.


2002 Halton Borough Council election, Campaign
18 seats were contested in the election, including 2 seats in Norton ward, where a Labour councillor had resigned his seat. The seats being contested included those of the Labour mayor, Chris Loftus, and the Liberal Democrat leader on the council, Alan Taylor. 47 candidates stood in the election, including 3 married couples, with Labour contesting seats in all 17 wards, as compared to 14 for the Conservatives, 9 for the Liberal Democrats and 2 from the Runcorn Labour Councillors Group.


2002 Halton Borough Council election, Campaign
Major issues in the election included housing, concerns over health effects from a local chemical plant and a proposal to close down a recreation centre in Norton. The council was dominated by Labour before the election and this was seen as unlikely to change.


2002 Halton Borough Council election, Results
The results saw Labour increase its majority on the council by gaining 3 seats to have 47 councillors, while the Runcorn Labour Councillors Group lost their 2 remaining seats. However the Liberal Democrats won an extra seat in Norton ward to remain the main opposition with 7 seats. Overall turnout in the election was 21.5%.


2002 Hamburg Masters
The 2002 Hamburg Masters was a  men's tennis tournament played on outdoor clay courts. It was the 96th edition of the Hamburg Masters and was part of the Tennis Masters Series of the 2002 ATP Tour. It took place at the Am Rothenbaum in Hamburg in Germany from 13 May through 19 May 2002.


2002 Hamburg Masters
The men's singles event field was headlined by World no.1 Lleyton Hewitt. Other top seeds competing were (in order) Gustavo Kuerten, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Yevgeny Kafelnikov. Ninth-seeded Andre Agassi withdrew just before the tournament and was replaced by lucky loser Fernando Meligeni. Roger Federer, seeded 11th, won the singles title.


2002 Hamburg Masters, Finals, Doubles
Mahesh Bhupathi /  Jan-Michael Gambill defeated  Jonas Björkman /  Todd Woodbridge 6–2, 6–4


2002 Hamburg Masters – Doubles
Jonas Björkman and Todd Woodbridge were the defending champions but lost in the final 6–2, 6–4 against Mahesh Bhupathi and Jan-Michael Gambill.


2002 Hamburg Masters – Doubles, Seeds
Champion seeds are indicated in bold text while text in italics indicates the round in which those seeds were eliminated.


2002 Hamburg Masters – Singles
In the 2002 Hamburg Masters Singles, Albert Portas was the defending champion but lost in the first round to Björn Phau. Roger Federer won in the final 6–1, 6–3, 6–4 against Marat Safin. The victory was notable for being Federer's first masters title as well as landing him in the top ten ranking for the very first time in his career.


2002 Hamburg Masters – Singles, Seeds
A champion seed is indicated in bold text while text in italics indicates the round in which that seed was eliminated.


2002 Hamilton Tiger-Cats season
The 2002 Hamilton Tiger-Cats season was the 45th season for the team in the Canadian Football League and their 53rd overall. The Tiger-Cats finished in 3rd place in the East Division with a 7–11 record and missed the playoffs for the first time since 1997. Despite having a 6–3 record at home, the Ti-Cats were 1–8 in away games, claiming that win in their last away game of the season.


2002 Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council election
The 2002 Hammersmith and Fulham Council election took place on 2 May 2002 to elect members of Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council in London, England. The whole council was up for election and the Labour party stayed in overall control of the council, despite winning fewer votes than the Conservative party.


2002 Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council election, Background
This was the first set of council election using new ward boundaries - a majority of which were three seaters. The total number of council seats was reduced from 50 to 46.


2002 Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council election, Election result
The Labour Party won 28 seats (on a 41.0% share of the vote) - 8 fewer seats than at previous election (on a loss of 8.7% of the vote), and maintained control of the council. The Conservative Party won 18 seats (with 42.5% of the vote) - 4 more seats than their previous result (increasing their vote share by 4.9%)The Liberal Democrats did not win any seats, and polled 14.1% of the votes cast - an increase of 1.5%.


2002 Haringey London Borough Council election
The 2002 Haringey London Borough Council election took place on 2 May 2002 to elect all members of Haringey London Borough Council in England. The election was held on new boundaries This was on the same day as other local elections around the country.


2002 Haringey London Borough Council election, By-Elections
The by-election was called following the resignation of Cllr. David Prendergast.


2002 Haringey London Borough Council election, By-Elections
The by-election was called following the resignation of Cllr. Josephine L. Irwin.


2002 Haringey London Borough Council election, By-Elections
The by-election was called following the resignation of Cllr. Ross Laird.


2002 Haringey London Borough Council election, By-Elections
The by-election was called following the resignation of Cllr. Barbara Fabian.


2002 Harlow District Council election
The 2002 Harlow District Council election took place on 2 May 2002 to elect members of  Harlow District Council in Essex, England. The whole council was up for election with boundary changes since the last election in 2000 reducing the number of seats by 9. The Labour party lost overall control of the council to no overall control.


2002 Harlow District Council election, Background
Before the election Labour controlled the council with 25 councillors, compared to 8 each for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, while there was 1 independent councillor. Boundary changes took effect for the 2002 election, reducing the number of councillors from 42 to 33 and the number of wards from 16 to 11 and meaning that the whole council was to be elected.


2002 Harlow District Council election, Background
11 Labour and 1 Conservative councillors stood down at the election, including the Labour assistant leader Derek Fenny and a former council chairman Terry Abel.


2002 Harlow District Council election, Election result
Labour were reduced by 16 seats and thereby lost overall control of the council. Overall turnout at the election was 36.84%.


2002 Harlow District Council election, Election result
Following the election the Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders, Andrew Johnson and Lorna Spenceley, made an agreement to be joint leaders of the council.