AHMEDABAD: The widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri today moved the Gujarat High Court challenging a lower court order giving a clean chit to Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others in connection with the 2002 riots.
Zakia Jafri, whose husband was killed by a mob during the riot at Gulbarg Society here, along with an NGO, filed a criminal review petition in the HC demanding that Modi and 59 others be charged with criminal conspiracy with regards to the post-Godhra communal violence.
The NGO, Citizen for Justice and Peace (CPJ), is run by social activist Teesta Setalvad.
Zakia also prayed for rejection of the closure report of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) submitted to the Ahmedabad Metropolitan Court.
The petition, running into about 540 pages, demanded rejection of the order of Metropolitan Magistrate B J Ganatra, who had accepted the report giving a clean chit to Modi and others, which included Ministers and bureaucrats, named in a complaint filed by Zakia.
The petition, coming just before the Lok Sabha polls, does not augur well for BJP as Modi, its Prime Ministerial candidate, once again comes under the scrutiny of courts for allegations he faces in relation to the 2002 riots.
“The Metropolitan Judge has accepted the contentions in the closure report of SIT without considering substantive arguments of the applicant (Zakia),” the petition said.
On December 26 last year, Ganatra had rejected Zakia’s protest petition challenging the SIT clean chit to Modi. The SIT had filed the closure report on February 8, 2012.
The High Court is likely to hear the review petition on March 20.
“SIT has not conducted a free and fair investigation against those named in the complaint,” she has alleged.
Ehsan was among 68 people, who were killed when a rioting mob attacked Gulbarg Society, a locality dominated by members of a minority community, on February, 28 2002, a day after the Godhra train carnage.
“Make Narendra Modi and 59 others accused in charges of criminal conspiracy to commit mass murder, arson, rape and also tampering with evidence and destroying valuable records of the Gujarat Home Department,” the petition demanded.
“The Magistrate committed a fundamental error by not dealing with the substantive arguments laid down by Zakia Jafri in written and oral submissions.”. The Judge displayed “non-application of mind” and simply accepted the closure report’s conclusions, Zakia said.
“The Judge did not consider the phone call contacts between the Chief Minister and co-conspirators to establish his involvement (in the riots).”
“He (Modi) failed to take preventive measures and instead supported a bandh (called by VHP), allowed post-mortems of gruesome burned bodies in the open and let the rampaging mobs take over the streets of cities and villages.
“Illegal instructions were issued to high-level policemen and bureaucrats, at a controversial meeting held on February 27, 2002 night, asking them not to follow the law the next day (February 28),” according to the plea.
“Key Government records were destroyed to deprive riot victims of justice. The Chief Minister’s Office and Home Department were allegedly involved in this exercise,” it said, adding the lower court ignored statements of key witnesses.
“Statements of former Chief Minister Suresh Mehta, slain state Home Minister Haren Pandya, Justice P B Sawant and Justice H Suresh related to the controversial meeting on February 27, 2002, were brushed aside by the Judge,” it said.
According to Zakia, at the meeting Modi had allegedly told officials to go soft on rioters.
“The Judge evaluated the statements and set them aside, while the apex court has ruled a trial court cannot evaluate the statements taken during investigation until there are some judicial errors,” the petition noted.
“The trial court Judge erred in holding that neither (IPS officer) Sanjiv Bhatt nor Haren Pandya’s version about the meeting could be believed.
“The Magistrate believed the versions of other persons present at the meeting, though they themselves were accused in the case and could not be expected to tell the truth.”
The testimonies of IPS officers Sanjiv Bhatt, R B Sreekumar and Rahul Sharma can expose the larger conspiracy behind the riots, Zakia said in the plea.
“The SIT had failed in discharging its duty of conducting a free and fair investigation. Wherever further investigation was required, the SIT simply observed that sufficient evidence has not come on record.
“It is the duty of SIT as well as of the court to find out the truth regarding commission of an offence. For that purpose, the court can direct further investigation under Sections 156(3) and 173(8) of CrPC,” the petition said.
Under these sections, an aggrieved person can seek further investigation in a case. –PTI
