Gujarat riots: Zakia Jafri says SIT ignored crucial evidence on Modi
Zakia Jafri, wife of Gujarat Congress leader and 2002 riot victim Ehsan Jafri, on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that a special investigation team had ignored crucial evidence to give a clean chit to then chief minister Narendra Modi in the larger case of conspiracy.
After absolving Modi of complicity in the riots as alleged by Zakia, the apex court-appointed SIT had filed a closure report in February 2012, which the trial court accepted in December 2013. Gujarat High Court upheld the decision in October 2017, and an aggrieved Zakia had approached the apex court.
“There were several facts which the SIT did not look into while filing the closure report,” senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for Zakia, told the bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and C.T. Ravi Kumar…. Sibal said some of the police messages had been destroyed. Sibal said the SIT had ignored the testimony of witnesses such as the then IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt. Bhatt, who had accused Modi of directing the police to let Hindus “vent their anger”, was later dismissed from service and recently sentenced to a life term over a three-decade-old custody death…. Justice Khanwilkar said the court wanted to see the closure report accepted by the magistrate….
