Gujarat High Court today adjourned hearing on the petition filed by Zakia Jafri, the widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the order of a local court which upheld special investigation team’s a clean chit to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others in a 2002 riots case.
Justice S G Shah posted the hearing for July 15 after asking the registry department to provide translation of the voluminous documents of the case.
On December 26 last year, Metropolitan Magistrate B J Ganatra here rejected Zakia’s protest petition challenging the Supreme Court-appointed SIT’s clean chit to Modi.
On March 15 this year, Zakia moved the HC against the Magistrate’s order upholding the SIT’s closure report.
Her petition seeks “to make Modi and 59 others accused on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit a mass murder, arson…and also tampering with evidence and destroying records of the Gujarat Home Department”.
The petition alleges that the Magistrate accepted SIT’s closure report with a “non-application of mind”. It also alleges that destruction of key records was carried out to ensure injustice to the victims, in which the Chief Minister’s office and the state home department were allegedly involved.
On February 28, 2002, following the Godhra train fire incident, 68 people including Ehsan Jafri were killed by a mob at Gulbarg Society here, as riots swept many parts of Gujarat.
Modi was the Chief Minister of the state then.
(Source: PTI)
