The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would hear after four weeks a plea by Zakia Jafri challenging the clean chit by the SIT to then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in connection with the 2002 Godhra riots.
Zakia, the wife of Ehsan Jafri, an ex-MP who was killed in one of the worst incidents during the riots, has challenged the Gujarat High Court’s October 5, 2017, order rejecting her plea against the SIT’s decision. A very uneventful day it was in the Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Society.
The matter came up for hearing before a bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and Ajay Rastogi.
“You are asking for four weeks and we are giving you four weeks. List the matter after four weeks,” the bench said.
Ms Jafri’s counsel on the other hand, said that the plea pertained to an alleged “larger conspiracy” during the period between February 27, 2002 and May 2002. Her counsel had said that when the case was before the trial judge, a protest filed by the petitioner was set aside without considering ‘substantiated merits’.
The SIT filed its closure report on February 8, 2012, citing “no prosecutable evidence” against PM Modi and 63 others, and handed all 64, including the PM, a clean chit. Ms Jafri’s plea in the Supreme Court says that the Gujarat High Court had “failed to appreciate” the petitioner’s complaint. Ms Jafri sought an interim order to the SIT for carrying out a further investigation.
A brief History
During the Gujarat riots, on February 2002, a Hindu mob attacked the Gulberg society in Ahmedabad in which 69 people were killed. Among the deceased was former MP Ehsan Jafri. The Gujarat High Court dismissed a petition of Zakia Jafri, wife of the former Congress MP, Ehsan Jafri, in November 2007, seeking the court’s directive to the police to register a complaint against the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 62 others for their alleged involvement in the Gulberg Society massacre. A SIT was constituted by the Supreme Court in order to look into the matter inquisitively. In August 2009, SIT filed charge sheet in the Gulberg Society massacre case.The Supreme Court permitted Special Investigation Team to conduct a further probe on the complaint by Zakia Jafri that Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 62 others orchestrated the 2002 riots in Gujarat. The SIT in a “summary closure report” — says there was no “prosecutable evidence” against Mr. Modi, who was among 62 persons named in an omnibus complaint filed by Ms. Jafri and the Citizens for Justice and Peace. In the end, the special court convicts 24 persons and acquitted 36 persons. 11 get life imprisonment for Gulberg Society massacre; one gets 10 years in jail and 12 convicts get seven years in jail.
The firing by Ehsan Jafri, did not provoke the mob to kill him. It was a cruel day for all the people killed during the riot. He was a very staunch Congressman, as quoted by the many witnesses who claim that Mr. Jafri tried his best to get some help from the then chief minister Mr. Modi. But all his cries went in vain. Now, some sign of relief can be enjoyed by his wife whose plea against the SIT order will be heard after a period of 4 weeks.
