The Gujarat Government had responded to the violence more swiftly and decisively than ever done before in any previous riots in the country. Yesterday's judgement culminated a process of unprecedented scrutiny closely monitored by the highest court of the land, the Honourable Supreme Court of India. Gujarat's 12 years of trial by the fire have finally drawn to an end. I feel liberated and at peace.

We proceeded systematically, village by village and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation.

Take the cases of Kerala or Kashmir, Bengal or Tripura, it will not come in the media. Some people have selective sensitivity. Hundreds of workers have been killed only for political ideology. In Tripura, workers were hanged. In Bengal, murders are still on. In Kerala too ... perhaps, in India only one political party has faced such killings. Violence has been given legitimacy. This is a danger before us.

Those who derive satisfaction by perpetuating pain in others will probably not stop their tirade against me. I do not expect them to. But, I pray in all humility, that they at least now stop irresponsibly maligning the 6 crore people of Gujarat.

When we dehumanise and demonise our opponents, we abandon the possibility of peacefully resolving our differences, and seek to justify violence against them.

Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.