Zakia lawyer says ‘glaring’ proof of collaboration, SC points to charges filed by SIT

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked Zakia Jafri, wife of Congress MP Ahsan Jafri, who was killed during the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, how she could say the special investigation team (SIT) appointed by the apex court “collaborated” with the accused when the team had filed chargesheets that ended in convictions in riot-related cases….

The remarks came when Sibal [who appeared for Jafri] said there is “glaring evidence of collaboration. The political class became collaborators. This is the stark story about collaboration with accused.” The bench is hearing Jafri’s appeal against the Gujarat High Court order upholding the Metropolitan Magistrate court’s decision to accept the SIT’s closure report, which gave a clean chit to then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and others in riots-related cases….

Sibal said, “Everybody ignored the hate crimes – the police, the magistrate (before whom the closure report was filed), the HC (which upheld the Magistrate’s decision to accept the closure report), the SIT, everybody.” “When contemporaneous evidence is available by statutory and parliamentary committees, why was it not accessed by the SIT,” he asked. Sibal also said that sometimes witnesses are offered money and referred to the case of Zahira Sheikh and said adding it needs to be examined if it happened in this case too.

This article originally appeared in The Indian Express.