Zakia Jafri, widow of Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots, accused the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of working to protect the conspirators.
Making submissions before a Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar on Thursday, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, for Ms. Jafri, said the investigation was riddled with omissions. The conclusions arrived at by the SIT contradicted the facts before it, Mr. Sibal said, even suggesting that the SIT itself should be probed.
Ms. Jafri is challenging the closure report filed by the SIT in February 2012. She has alleged that the riots were the machination of the people in power at the time in the State. The conspiracy had manifested in a “compliant” State administration and a complacent police force amidst the carnage.
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The SIT had given a clean chit to the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 63 others, including senior government officials, saying there was “no prosecutable evidence” against them. A ‘protest petition’ filed by Ms. Jafri against the clean chit was dismissed by the Magistrate. The Gujarat High Court too, in October 2017, refused to entertain Ms. Jafri.
“I am not concerned with individuals. I am concerned with the process. I am only saying SIT did not do its job. It was an act of protection. It did a collaborative exercise,” Mr. Sibal alleged.
Mr. Sibal said the SIT did not investigate evidence which were obvious, including call details, records of police officers and the roving mobs which unleashed violence. “They [SIT] did not record statements of witnesses. No phones were seized from the accused. No call record details were analysed. They never arrested anybody, never checked why documents were destroyed and why the police stood by doing nothing… They just accepted the statements of the accused… There should have been an investigation,” Mr. Sibal said.
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