By TCN Special Correspondent,
Ahmedabad: When the Supreme Court in 2008 asked the Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by former CBI director R K Raghavan to probe into the complaint of Zakia Jafri, wife of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed in 2002 communal riots, it was expected that SIT would nail the truth.
Zakia had alleged that there was an overarching conspiracy in the statewide communal riots in February-March 2002 that resulted in killing of 1186 persons, mostly Muslims and destruction of Muslim properties worth hundreds of crores of rupees, besides displacement of people running into several lakhs. She had held Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 61 others, including his ministers, senior civil and police bureaucrats responsible for the conspiracy behind the riots.
Narendra Modi [TCN Photo]
But the SIT report that was handed over to Zakia on May 7, 2012, has come as a severe disappointment. SIT report has recommended closure of the Zakia case saying there was no evidence involving Modi’s hand in the riots. It not only exonerated Chief Minister Narendra Modi for failing to protect the lives and properties of the citizens but also said that Modi’s alleged instructions to senior police officials to allow Hindus to “vent their anger’’ after the Godhra train burning incident, “does not constitute an offence’’.
The SIT report says: “The interpretations made on illegal instructions given by the CM, by R B Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt, appear to be without any basis. Further, even if such allegations are to be believed for the sake of argument, a mere statement of alleged words in the four wall of a room does not constitute an offence’’. Such argument cannot be accepted because the statement was made when the entire state was in a state of communal tension. And Modi had not made the statement before the walls but before the topmost layer of civil and police officers in the state. In fact, the entire case of conspiracy behind the riots depended on this statement. This shows how far the SIT has gone to protect Modi.
The allegations that Modi had instructed senior police officials were made first by former DGP R B Sreekumar in his deposition before Nanavati Commission probing the Godhra and post-Godhra incidents. Subsequently, suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt made the same allegations in his affidavit in the Supreme Court, as a part of his argument that the riots were a pre-planned conspiracy.
While Sreekumar had, in his depositions, stated that the then DGP K. Chakravarti had told him on February 28, 2002, that MOdi had told at the meeting at his residence on February 27, 2002, that police should not try to make a balance between Hindus and Muslims during the riots now and they should now allow Hindus to give vent to their anger. But Chakravarti later on denied that he had ever told any such thing to Sreekumar.
Later on Sanjiv Bhatt in an affidavit in the Supreme Court stated that he was present in February 27, 2002 meeting at CM’s residence and he had heard Modi instructing police officers in the meeting to allow Hindus to give vent to their anger and teach Muslims a lesson.
But SIT report has dismissed the statements of Sreekumar and Bhatt as “without any basis’’. Giving reason for dismissing the Bhatt statements, SIT report says that versions of Bhatt given to SIT investigators and the one to the Supreme Court differ from each other and hence, these were not believable.
To defend Modi, SIT has extensively quoted his statements he made within and outside the state assembly.
“When CM visited Godhra on February 27 evening, he addressed the media and asserted that the culprits would not be spared and the victims would be paid Rs. 2 lakh each. On February 28, 2002, within hours of the alleged meeting on the night of February 27, 2002, the CM stated on the floor of the Assembly that the state government has taken this heinous, inhuman and organized violent act very seriously and is committed to give exemplary punishment to the culprits so that such incidents never recur anywhere,’’ SIT report says.
The SIT report further says: The CM repeated almost similar words at his press conference on the afternoon of February 28 in Ahmedabad. In his appeal through Doordarshan on February 28, the CM reiterated that Gujarat will never tolerate any such incident. He also said that culprits should be awarded such exemplary punishments that no one would dare to get involved in such incidents’’.
Taking these statements of Modi, SIT concluded that the allegations leveled against Modi by Sreekumar and Bhatt were without any basis and hence, not believable.
Commenting on the SIT report, human rights activist J S Bandukwala said: “Raghavan seems to have compromised completely by virtue of his links to Tata Motors that has been given huge tracts of land for its Nano car project and very cheap loans by the Modi government. So, what Raghavan says in the report has no meaning’’. He hopes that the court will step in and give greater priority to amicus curiae Raju Ramchandran’s report. Ramchandran has suggested probe into Modi’s role in the riots.