A local court in Gujarat on Saturday directed that the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi be deleted from a civil suit seeking damages for the gruesome killing of four British citizens during the 2002 riots.
Four British nationals were killed in a rioting incident in Sabarkantha district of north Gujarat during the communal riots in 2002.
The local court in its order held that there was no substantive material to link the defendant (Narendra Modi) in his personal or official capacity with the incident, and termed the allegations made in the civil suit as “vague and general” in nature.
Principal senior civil judge in Prantij town court Suresh Gadhavi pronounced the order directing removal of the name of Narendra Modi, who was the then Chief Minister of the State, along with former IPS officers K. Chakravarty, Amitabh Pathak and Ashok Narayan, whose names also were also mentioned as defendants in the civil suit filed by the relatives of the deceased.
The civil suit was filed 2004 by Sameema Dawood, a British national, and others, in the local court against Mr. Modi, then minister of State for Home Gordhan Zadaphia and 12 others, seeking ₹20 crore as damage “on account of violence in the State wherein the relatives of the plaintiffs are alleged to have been killed…”
During the 2002 communal riots, British nationals Saeed Dawood, Shakeel Dawood and Mohammed Aswat were killed by a mob on National Highway 8 on February 28, 2002 while they were returning from Rajasthan. Three of them were killed on the spot while the dead body of the fourth was never found and he was presumed dead after seven years.
The court passed the order on Saturday after a lawyer S.S. Shah moved an application on behalf of Mr. Modi, contending that his name as a defendant was not legally sustainable in the suit.
In 2015, a special designated trial court had acquitted all the six accused for want of evidence linking them with the crime. This sensational rioting case was one of the nine cases probed by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team and its trial was held in special designated court under the monitoring of the apex court.
