Give all papers in 2002 Gulbarg riot case to Zakia Jafri: SC tells SIT

Overturning a magistrate’s order in the 2002 Gulbarg society massacre case in Gujarat, the Supreme Court today ordered that the entire report of a Special Investigation Team (SIT), including some documents that were initially excluded,  should be handed over to slain MP Ehsan Jafri’s wife, Zakia. The SIT headed by former CBI Director R K Raghavan had probed the riots cases including the Ahmedabad Gulbarg Housing Society massacre case in which Jafri, a former Congress MP, was killed. After seeking a view from the SIT on whether it could provide the documents to Zakia, the Supreme Court today said that Zakia was entitled to the entire SIT report barring the comments of its chief. [caption id=“attachment_617524” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Zakia Jafri has fought a lone battle for years now. Image courtesy ibnlive.[/caption] A trial court in Ahmedabad had on 27 November accepted the closure report filed on 13 March, 2012 by the SIT in the case. Zakia had filed a SLP challenging the order of the trial court rejecting her plea asking of certain documents relating to the investigation in the case. Zakia had accused over 50 people including Chief Minister Narendra Modi of being involved in the post-Godhra riots. She had alleged that her husband Congress MP Ehsaan Jafri was burnt alive outside his house in the Gulbarg Housing Society when he tried to plead for the lives of women and children being killed in the society complex in February 2002. However, the SIT had told the magistrate’s court that it had not found any evidence of the involvement of Chief Minister Modi in the Gulbarg massacre case. After a prolonged legal battle, an Ahmedabad magistrate had ordered that the report by the SIT should be submitted to Jafri. However, not all the documents related to the probe were given which the former MP’s wife had sought. Senior IPS officer A K Malhotra, also a SIT member, who was specially asked to probe the Gulburg Society case, had given his report to a special bench of the apex court in a sealed cover. Zakia had filed the petition challenging the trial court’s order rejecting her plea for supply of some documents relating to the investigation in the case including the probe report filed by Malhotra. She was seeking the documents to file a protest petition against the SIT’s closure report. Zakia contended that the court’s refusal to allow her access the documents pertaining to the investigation by the SIT into the case was coming in the way of her filing the protest petition against the closure report.