Gulbarg masacre: Zakia Jafri to appeal against SIT report clearing Modi

Zakia Jafri, widow of Congress Gujarat MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed during the 2002 commual riots in Gujarat, will file a petition challenging the SIT closure report that gave Chief Minister Narendra Modi a clean chit in the Gulbarg society massacre case. An Ahmedabad trial court had on 27 November, accepted the SIT closure report filed on 13 March, 2012 in the case.  However in February 2013, the Supreme Court allowed her to file a fresh petition, challenging the report. [caption id=“attachment_698887” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP[/caption] She was later asked by a Gujarat trial court to file her petition before 15 April, 2013. Following her husband’s brutal death, Zakia Jafri filed a case against Modi and 62 others in 2006, alleging complicity in the communal riots. Among the others she mentioned in her complaint were Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders Praveen Togadia, Jaideep Patel and Keka Shastri, 11 ministers, five MLAs, senior police officials and bureaucrats. Ehsan Jafri was reportedly burnt alive by the mob, and his repeated calls to various government officials asking for help, had gone unheeded. “A mass carnage was orchestrated by the most powerful in the State executive using pressure and connivance of the State administration and law and order machinery,” Jafri stated in her FIR. “There has been continued and consistent attempts to further this unlawful and unconstitutional worldview and mandate by using state terror and pressure to intimidate victim survivors, marginalise (socially and economically) the community they hail from, destroy and/or manipulate evidence to influence the course of justice,” she said. With inputs from agencies