2002 riots: Zakia Jafri vs Narendra Modi - Court dismisses petition, gives clean chit to Modi

In a major relief for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a local court yesterday dismissed a petition by a deceased Congress leaderrsquos widow challenging the SITrsquos closure report giving a clean chit to him and 58 others in a case relating to the 2002 communal riots Expressing disappointment over the ruling by Metropolitan Magistrate BJ Ganatra Zakia Jafri and her supporters including activist Teesta Setalvad said they would challenge it before a higher court An activist armed with a iron stick is seen shouting slogans in front of burning material at Sahapur in Ahmedabad File picAFP The petition challenging the Supreme Courtappointed Special Investigation Teamrsquos closure report was filed by Jafri the widow of slain former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was among the 69 people killed in the Gulbarg Society massacre on February 28 2002 during the bloody riots in the wake of the Godhra train incident In her petition Jafri had alleged that the SIT had shielded Modi and others by discarding the statements of police officers and other available evidence Wherersquos the truth She further accused the SIT of having done incomplete and frivolous investigations and playing the role of a court by adjudging the truth about the available evidence Before closing the matter the SIT had said there was not sufficient evidence to prosecute Modi and the incident alleged the Gulbarg massacre was beyond the ambit of its probe The investigating agency further said that it could not find any prosecutable evidence against the accused regarding their involvement in the alleged larger riots conspiracy The SIT declined to consider IPS officers RB Sreekumar Sanjiv Bhatt and Rahul Sharma as witnesses or treat their statements as evidence on grounds that these were ldquohearsay evidencerdquo Truth alone triumphs Narendra Modi As a local court upheld the closure of the Special Investigation Team SIT report probing the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat state Chief Minister Narendra Modi said it represented the ldquotriumph of truthrdquou00a0ldquoTruth alone triumphsrdquo Modi tweeted after the verdict came ldquoTruth by nature is selfevident As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it it shines clearrdquo Modi said borrowing the words of Mahatma Gandhi 2002 riots On February 27 2002 a train returning from Ayodhya carrying several Karsevaks was halted near Godhra station and was set on fire by a group of people During the incident 58 people were charred inside the bogies of the Sabarmati Express that caught fire The incident sparked a series of violent attacks across the state that saw over a 1000 people lose their lives and left 2500 people injured Zakia Jafriu00a0PicAFP Waiting for justice This photograph was taken on February 27 2012 when Zakia Jafri widow of exCongress MP Ehsan Jafri visited her house that was torched during the 2002 massacre at the Gulbarg Society in Ahmedabad Zakiarsquos late husband Ehsan was killed in the Gulbarg Society massacre which came after a train carrying karsevaks was set alight leaving 58 people dead in Gujarat An angry mob killed her husband and set their house on fire Legal battle gtgt In 2006 Jafri had sought to lodge a complaint about the alleged larger conspiratorial role of Modi and 62 others during the 2002 riots gtgtu00a0After the Gujarat Police failed to register her complaint she petitioned the Gujarat High Court which directed her to a magisterial court However she decided to move the Supreme Court gtgtu00a0The apex court had directed the SIT to look into the issue and later directed it to file its report before the concerned magistrate court gtgtu00a0In February last year the SIT filed its closure report virtually exonerating all the accused including Modi and others which was challenged by Jafri through her lawyer Mihir Desai