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2002 Gujarat riots: SIT concludes arguments against Zakia’s plea

The Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team on Wednesday concluded its arguments against Zakia Jafri’s petition, which was seeking rejection of SIT report giving clean chit to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and others in the 2002 post-Godhra riots.

While concluding the submissions before metropolitan magistrate B J Ganatra, SIT lawyer R S Jamuar urged the court to reject the petition filed by Zakia and accept the report.
Zakia is the widow of Ehsan Jafri, a former MP who was burnt to death in the post-Godhra riots.

Summing up his arguments, Jamuar claimed Zakia’s complaint, filed before Supreme Court in June 2006, was nothing but an ‘assembly of irrelevant material’ and it contains nothing which can be investigated under the provisions of criminal procedure code (CrPC).

Defending the report, which concluded that no criminality has been made out against any of the persons against whom the complaint has been filed, SIT asserted it has collected all possible material during ‘fair’ investigation, monitored by the apex court, and on that basis, the report has been filed. In January 2012, SIT had submitted its final report giving clean chit to Modi and others in the 2002 post-Godhra riots.

Zakia had filed a petition before the magistrate protesting the SIT report and sought filing of charge sheet against Modi and 58 others.

In her protest petition, Zakia also demanded rejection of SIT report by the court and directions of further probe into her complaint by an independent agency, other than SIT.

The court adjourned the hearing till 26 June, when Zakia’s advocate will begin arguments for the rejection of SIT closure report and for their demand to file charge sheet against Modi and others.
Defending the conclusion of SIT report, Jamuar claimed all the issues raised by Zakia in her complaint have been probed thoroughly and nothing was found which can prompt SIT to file criminal case against anyone who was named.

In support of her complaint, claiming a larger conspiracy behind riots, Zakia accused the administration of failing to take steps statutorily required under law to prevent outbreak and spread of violence.

Elaborating it, she cited the failure to declare curfew on time, to make preventive arrests, to call army on time and to make effective firing to dispel the violent mob in the aftermath of Godhra train burning incidence on 27 February, 2002. Rejecting these claims, Jamuar argued, ‘in our investigation, we found that state government imposed the curfew on the evening of February 28 as dead bodies of those killed in Godhra were being brought in Ahmedabad.’  ‘Gujarat police fired more bullets to contain riots than tear gas shells. More than 100 people were killed in police firing. What they (petitioners) want? Should police have killed half of the Gujarat population?’ Jamuar asked.

He also argued that SIT examined the complainant and all others who were been named as witnesses in Zakia’s complaint and ‘we have found that there is no credible material’.
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