Gandhinagar : Zakia Jafri, wife of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was among those killed in the massacre at Gulberg society in Ahmedabad, has appealed against the order of the subordinate court rejecting her protest petition seeking to book chief minister Narendra Modi and 59 others on charges of criminal conspiracy during the 2002 communal riots.
Zakia Jafri |
The revision appeal was filed on March 15 and will come up for hearing on March 20.
The appeal also seeks rejection of the closure report of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) dated February 8, 2012, which had given a clean chit to the Gujarat chief minister.
The magistrate had, on Dec 26, 2013, rejected Zakia Jafri’s protest petition filed on April 15, 2013.
The 540 page criminal revision application lays out substantive grounds for rejection of magistrate BJ Ganatra’s order and seeks to point out “the double faced” role played by the SIT after the Supreme Court stopped monitoring the probe and handed it over to the Crime Branch of the Ahmedabad police. Making out a case of non-application of mind by the magistrate and simple acceptance of the
contentions in the closure report, it sketches out failure to consider material put up to establish prima facie involvement of Modi in serious crimes of conspiracy and abetment of crimes of murder, arson and rape.
The application also says the magistrate failed to access evidence of phone call contact between the prime accused Modi and co-conspirators and failure of the chief minister to take preventive measures. Other contentious issues are permission granted for postmortem of burnt bodies in the open, which triggered statewide riots; illegal instructions to top officers not to follow the law; and decision to post cabinet ministers in police control rooms to ensure the execution of the illegal instructions.
It also points to the destruction of key records of the Chief Minister’s Office and Home department.
The application also takes umbrage at the subordinate court not treating the statement of former chief minister Suresh Mehta, former minister Haren Pandya and Justice Sawant and Justice Suresh as statements under the CrPc in relation to the controversial high level meeting called by the chief minister at his residence on February 27, 2002, a day after the Godhra train carnage, where orders against taking action were allegedly issued.
A similar disregard of the testimony of three top police officers in the matter, which sought to bring out a conspiracy, has also been pointed out in the appeal challenging the order.
RK MISRA
