Zakiya Jafri case: Special Investigation Team submits report; clean chit to Narendra Modi, say sources

Ahmedabad: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the Supreme Court to investigate the 2002 Gujarat riots cases, has submitted its final report on a complaint against Chief Minister Narendra Modi filed by riot victim Zakiya Jafri. Sources say the report gives Mr Modi a clean chit.

The SIT, sources say, has found no "prosecutable evidence" against Mr Modi and 62 other senior politicians and cops accused by Ms Jafri of ensuring that assistance was not provided to her husband, former Congress MP Ehsaan Jafri, and 68 others who were attacked and killed by a rioting mob at Ahmedabad's Gulbarg Housing Society, where the Jafris lived, in February 2002. Mr Jafri was allegedly burnt alive by rioters when he stepped out to plead for the lives of women and children to be spared. Ms Jafri says her husband had made desperate calls to the police and Mr Modi's office for help, but to no avail. She has been fighting a legal battle for many years now.

The SIT submitted its report in a sealed cover yesterday to a Gujarat magistrate's court, as ordered by the Supreme Court. Zakiya Jafri has asked for a copy of the SIT report and filed a fresh application this morning asking if the report is "comprehensive, final , conclusive and in compliance with Supreme Court guidelines." The trial court will hear Ms Jafri's plea at 3 pm on Monday, February 13.

The court will now decide whether to accept the SIT report after it goes through the several thousand pages and evaluates it. It will then conclude whether further investigations are needed in the case.

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There is a long legal process ahead, but Mr Modi's party, the BJP would like to score political points right now. Party president Nitin Gadkari said today, "Delhi is conspiring against Gujarat. The CBI is misused and regular attempts are made to tarnish the image of the Gujarat government. This is done with politics in mind; the centre should now stop the mischief against the state government." A more circumspect Arun Jaitley said if mediia reports on the SIT findings were true then three investigations had now found no merit in the allegations against Mr Modi and so these should now be dropped.

Sources say the latest SIT report also notes that no substantial evidence has been found to support suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt's allegation that Chief Minister Modi had, at a meeting on February 28, 2002, ordered that rioters be given a free hand. The SIT, say sources, states in its report that seven officials present at that meeting had denied that Mr Bhatt was even there. The meeting was called to discuss law and order after the Godhra train burning incident that sparked the Gujarat riots.

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Last year, the Supreme Court had refused to take a position on the merits of Zakiya Jafri's case and had, instead, directed the SIT to submit a final report to a Gujarat trial court after studying the charges against Mr Modi and the evidence in the case. The Supreme Court's order was immediately hailed by the Chief Minister, as also by the BJP, as a vindication of sorts. Mr Modi, in fact, had tweeted "God is Great" soon after the order.

Zakiya Jafri's family, however, chose to interpret the Supreme Court order quite differently and now says that the reported SIT clean chit for the Chief Minister is not conclusive. Ms Jafri's son, Tanvir Jafri, said today, "The Supreme Court's directive that they will conduct an enquiry in itself is a big victory... if that wasn't there we wouldn't have reached this stage today... a closure report is given by an investigation officer, not the court... It's the investigation officer who is of the opinion that there shouldn't be any case on Chief Minister or his colleague... if the investigation officer himself was a judge then why would we need to go to a judge or magistrate."

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Ms Jafri had in 2006 written to the Gujarat Director General of Police, A.K Bhargava, asking that a case be registered against Chief Minister Modi, alleging that he was behind a larger conspiracy that led to the post-Godhra riots. When she did not get a reply, she approached the Gujarat High Court, which rejected her plea. This was in 2007. In 2008, she moved the Supreme Court, which set up the SIT in 2009 and directed it to look into Ms Jafri's complaint. The SIT had also questioned Mr Modi twice and had submitted a report in 2010 stating that it found no "prosecutable evidence" against Mr Modi.

The Supreme Court had then directed an amicus curiae, Raju Ramchandran, to file a separate report in the Jafri case. Mr Ramchandran reportedly differed on various points with the SIT's findings. The Supreme Court then referred the Zakiya Jafri petition to the Gujarat trial court in September 2011.