Zakia challenges clean chit by SIT to former Gujarat CM and others in 2002 riots

New Delhi :  The Supreme Court will hear on November 19 a plea by Zakia Jafri challenging the Gujarat High court order upholding the clean chit to the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others for the alleged larger conspiracy in the 2002 post-Godhra riots.

Zakia Ahsan Jafri is the widow of late Congress leader Ahsan Jafri who was killed in mob violence on Gulberg Housing Society during 2002 Gujarat riots. Jafri was former member of parliament.

The bench of Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice Deepak Gupta said they would hear the plea by Zakia Jafri on Monday after it came up for hearing today.

Jafri has challenged the October 5, 2017 order of Gujarat High Court upholding the Magistrate court order rejecting Jafri’s protest petition challenging the SIT report giving clean chit to top political leaders and state functionaries for the alleged larger conspiracy.

The SIT was set up by the top court, and it had come to the conclusion that no case was made out and the same was accepted by the Magistrate and the finding was “erroneously” reiterated by the High Court, says the petition by Jafri.

The petition further says that the High Court refused to interfere with the Magistrate court order “despite large amount of documentation and contemporaneous evidence that existed which made out a triable case against all the accused.”

The petition by Jafri says she in her case had levelled allegations against various bureaucrats, police officers and political leaders for alleged “conspiracy, abetment and hate speech” culminating in 2002 violence.

Petitioner Jafri referred to the burning of the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002 resulting in the death of 59 kar sevaks at Godhra railway station. She said this was “presumed to be communal attack against the Hindus and this culminated into a reprisal against the Muslim community leading to orchestrated violence and targeted killings.”

Jafri says in her petition that “as contemporaneous official data began to be released, including the intelligence collected by the State Intelligence Bureau (SIB), it transpired that the SIB had information about systematic movements of kar sevaks and accumulation of arms, which was ignored and facilitated by inaction.”

Published on: Nov 13, 2018 at 19:58 IST

IANS