By IANS,
Gandhinagar: The widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffri Tuesday expressed satisfaction over the Supreme Court order to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to keep two senior Gujarat police officers away from investigations into the 2002 communal riot cases during which her husband was killed.
Zakia Jaffri said she was opposed to the inclusion of the Gujarat cadre Indian Police Service (IPS) officers Geetha Johri and Shivanand Jha in the SIT because their approach to investigations of the communal riots cases was “blatantly partisan.”
“I hope that justice has a much fairer chance now,” she said in Surat.
Both police officers ordered to be disassociated from the SIT investigations occupy key positions in the Narendra Modi government. Jha, currently the Surat police commissioner, was one of the 62 accused in Zakia’s petition before the Supreme Court demanding re-investigation into the riot cases.
Johri is currently the police commissioner of Rajkot. Entrusted with the investigation of the Sohrabuddin killing case by the Supreme Court, she had come in for criticism by the apex court and the investigation was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The Supreme Court had received representations against the inclusion of the two officers from numerous voluntary organisations supporting the riot victims, including the Mumbai-based Citizens for Justice and Peace.