Court seeks SIT officer’s reply on missing CD

A court hearing the Naroda Gam post-Godhra riots case on Tuesday queried the investigating officer of the SIT on a "missing" CD containing call records of important state functionaries in connection with the riots.

The special trial court judge PB Desai on Tuesday directed investigating officer Himanshu Shukla to give details whether the original CD, that has gone missing as per the claim of the accused, was in the possession of <g data-gr-id="26">P P</g> Pandey, Joint Commissioner of Police in 2002, or it was with former IPS officer Rahul Sharma. The court has fixed the next hearing for June 8.

Shukla, who is presently the Superintendent of Police in <g data-gr-id="29">Anti Terrorism</g> Squad (ATS) of the state, was present before the special court on Tuesday after summons were issued against him last month in connection with a plea filed by 65 accused persons to prosecute Sharma for allegedly misplacing the CD containing important call details related to the riots.

On March 7, the accused had filed the plea and sought action against a former investigator of the case and IPS officer P L Mall for not taking any action against Sharma.

The plea was moved by defence lawyer Chetan Shah, who had submitted that Sharma had misplaced the original CD containing the call details of state functionaries during the riots, and submitted a duplicate version before the panel headed by retired justice G T Nanavati which was probing the riots.

Sharma had allegedly given the CD to <g data-gr-id="17">P P</g> Pandey, but the latter had denied that he had received it, the petition said.

Sharma, who was appointed as the Deputy Commissioner of Police in the state control room during the year 2002, had assisted Gujarat police for a brief time in the investigation of riot cases and made a CD comprising call data records of important functionaries.