Gulbarg Society Carnage: Gujarat HC to Decide on Modi’s Clean Chit
Sixty-eight people were killed in the riots on 28 February 2002.
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The Gujarat High Court on 9 August, is likely to pronounce its order on a petition by the widow of slain former MP Ehsan Jafri. The criminal review petition moved by Zakia Jafri and activist Teesta Setalvad's NGO ‘Citizen for Justice and Peace’ challenged a lower court order upholding the SIT clean chit to the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others in 2002 riots cases.
The petition demands to make Modi and 59 others as accused on charges of criminal conspiracy behind the riots.
Ehsan Jafri was one of the victims of the riots when a mob set his house in the city's Gulbarg Society on fire.
Sixty-eight people were killed in the riots on 28 February, a day after the Godhra train carnage.
The SIT had informed the court during the course of hearing that its report challenged by Jafri was investigated under the watchful eyes of the apex court and has been largely accepted by all.
It submitted that the lower court, where the case was first heard, had looked into all aspects of allegations to conclude that there was no further need to investigate the matter from the larger conspiracy angle.
Zakia's lawyer had told the court that the magistrate who accepted the SIT's closure report did not even consider other options like rejecting the report, or order fresh probe.
In December 2013, a metropolitan court had rejected Jafri's plea to book Modi and others for criminal conspiracy, after which she moved high court in 2014.
The SIT had on 8 February 2012, filed a closure report and given clean chit to Modi and others in the case.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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