Gujarat riots case: High Court rejects Zakia Jafri's plea, gives clean chit to Narendra Modi and others

Ahmedabad:  The Gujarat high court has rejected Zakia Jafri’s plea challenging a lower court order upholding SIT’s clean chit to then chief minister Narendra Modi and others on allegations of larger conspiracy in connection with the 2002 post-Godhra riots. [caption id=“attachment_726445” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Zakia Jaffri. IBN Live[/caption] The high court, however, allowed Zakia to approach higher forums for further investigation in the case. Zakia, the wife of slain former MP Ehsan Jafri, and activist Teesta Setalvad’s NGO, citizen for justice and peace had moved the criminal review petition against a magistrate’s order upholding the clean chit given by the special investigation team (SIT) to Modi and others regarding the allegations of a “larger criminal conspiracy” behind the riots. The petition demanded that Modi and 59 others including senior police officers and bureaucrats be made accused for allegedly being part of a conspiracy which facilitated the riots. It had also sought the high court’s direction for fresh investigation into the matter. Ehsan Jafri, a Congress leader, was among 68 people who were killed at the Gulberg Society in Gujarat when a mob attacked it on 28 February, 2002, a day after the Godhra train burning incident which set off riots in the state. The SIT’s closure report, filed on 8 February, 2012, gave a clean chit to Modi and others. In December 2013, the metropolitan magistrate’s court rejected Jafri’s petition against the report, after which she moved the high court in 2014.