TIA Special Correspondent
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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) has reportedly cleared Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi of the charges of failure to discharge his constitutional duty of swiftly intervening to stop the communal riots that engulfed the state in 2002.
According to reliable sources SIT found "no substantial incriminating evidence" against Narendra Modi who was accused by the wife of former Congress MP, Ahesan Jafri of deliberately letting the rioters run rampage and as a result her husband was brutally killed. Ahesan’s wife Zakia Jafri had alleged that the police did not stop the riotors from attacking the Gulbarg Society housing complex.
On April 27 last year the apex court had asked the SIT headed by former CBI director R K Raghavan to investigate Zakia Jafri’s complaint.
The SIT submitted its status report to the apex court six days ago in a sealed envelope. The report was forwarded to a Bench comprising of Justices D K Jain, P Sathasivam and Aftab Alam.
Zakia Jafri in her complaint against Modi had said : "The constitutionally elected head of the state and responsible for fundamental rights, right to life and property of all citizens regardless of caste, community and gender, alleged to be architect of a criminal conspiracy to subvert constitutional governance and the rule of law; unleash unlawful and illegal practices during the mass carnage and thereafter protecting the accused who played direct as well as indirect role and abetted commission of the crime."
The complaint had identical charges against 15 cabinet ministers and MLAs. It said they, despite being under oath to defend and protect the lives and property of all citizens, allegedly used "political influence to prevent administration and the law and order machinery from carrying out their constitutionally bound duty to prevent violence and protect the citizens".
Apart from alleging grave derelection of duty against Modi and 62 others including the collectors and SPs of every riot affected district, Jafri said there had been "deliberate attempts to scuttle most of the cases".
After investigating the complaint and related files, the SIT had to seek a direction from the apex court to a reluctant Gujarat government for handing over of all alleged "hate-speeches" in and around the time of riots. The SC had criticised the state government and asked it to hand over the documents sought by the SIT. The investigation also saw Modi being quizzed by sleuths over his role during the riots, which left more than 2,000 dead.
The SIT was set up earlier by the SC to look into the charge of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that the state police inquiry into several key riot cases was shoddy and unreliable.