Zakia Jafri, wife of the late Ehsan Jafri who was killed in the riots on 28 February 2002, had filed a complaint against Narendra Modi and 62 others. On the basis of this complaint, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted by the Supreme Court of India to inquire into the charges. This SIT, despite intense pressure from the media, the NGOs, and allegedly also the UPA Government to frame Narendra Modi, gave him a thorough clean chit. The findings of the SIT were also accepted by the lower court of Gujarat in December 2013. The background of the constitution of this SIT with the timeline is given below.
On June 8, 2006, Zakia Jafri, in a letter to the DGP (Director General of Police), sought registration of a FIR (First Information Report) against the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 62 others for conspiracy behind 2002 riots in Gujarat. The police refused to lodge the complaint. Then on May 1, 2007, Zakia Jafri moved the Gujarat High Court after the DGP (Director General of Police) declined to entertain her complaint. On Nov 2, 2007 Gujarat High Court dismissed her plea. Subsequently Zakia moved the Supreme Court of India.
Then on March 26, 2008, the Supreme Court (SC) ordered the Narendra Modi government to re-investigate nine cases in the 2002 Gujarat riots, including the Gulberg Society incident in which Zakia’s husband was killed. The Supreme Court constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by former CBI director R K Raghavan to probe the cases afresh. And in March 2009 the SC asked the SIT to look into Zakia’s complaint over the role of chief minister Narendra Modi and others. The SIT had submitted its report earlier, which was seen and reviewed by the Amicus Curiae Raju Ramchandran in January 2011. On March 15, 2011, the SC asked the SIT to look into the doubts raised by Amicus Curiae Raju Ramchandran. This was also done and the SIT submitted its second revised report specifically answering all doubts of Raju Ramchandran on 25 April 2011. Raju Ramchandran accepted most of the findings of the SIT and agreed that most of his doubts were wrong, but still stuck to 2 doubts. He submitted his report accepting most of the SIT’s findings but sticking to his 2 doubts on 25 July 2011. But the Supreme Court did not agree with his (biased and totally absurd) observations and agreed with SIT. On 12 September 2011, the SC ended its monitoring in this issue.
In February 2012, the SIT probing the 2002 violence filed its final report before a local court. The SIT report gave Modi a clean chit in the Gulberg Society massacre. Zakia filed a protest petition against clean chit given to Modi by the SIT. But all the courts rejected Zakia’s petitions and upheld the clean chit given to Narendra Modi by the SIT and accepted its closure report.
Many vital and important finds of the SIT in its closure report need to be highlighted as they have been covered up. This chapter aims at revealing some of them.
Zakia Jafri has alleged in her complaint that ‘2500 people were killed in 5 days’ as per the SIT report on page 9. We have of course seen the truth of the death toll earlier in this book. The SIT report also says on page 5 that: “The allegations made in the complaint dated 8-6-2006 (8 June 2006 and not 6 August 2006 as it could mean in some places outside India) of Zakia Nasim were general in nature, mostly based on media reports as well as other documents like affidavits filed by Shri R B Sreekumar about which she had no personal knowledge…”
The SIT says on pages 16-19 that: “Smt. Zakia Nasim was first examined by the local police on 6 March 2002 and her statement recorded under Section 161 CrPC but she never came up with all the details mentioned in her aforesaid complaint (dated 8 June 2006). In her statement before the local police she had stated that while they were being shifted from the Gulberg Society in jail vans, the mob assembled there would have lynched all of them to death but for the timely action by the police. Smt. Zakia Nasim then appeared before the Nanavati Commission of Inquiry on 29 August 2003 but did not disclose the facts given by her in her said complaint. In September 2003, Smt. Zakia Nasim filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court of India, but did not mention these facts. It was for the first time on 8 June 2006, i.e. after a lapse of more than four years of the incident, that she came up with the lengthy complaint in question. Smt. Zakia Nasim was examined by the SIT on 7 November 2008, but she failed to state any of these facts as mentioned in her complaint dated 8 June 2006. She does not have any personal knowledge about the facts mentioned in the affidavits filed by Shri R.B. Sreekumar during the years 2002, 2004 and 2005 on his own. In this complaint the following glaring discrepancies/ errors have been noticed:
A: The allegations are vague, general and stereotyped and nothing specific had been mentioned in respect of the following accused persons …Accused Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 25, 26, 29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 40, 27, 28, 31, 34, 37, 43, 45, 46, 48, 63, 30, 47, 49, 51, 53, 57, 58, 59, 50, 52. (The SIT report gives details of the vagueness and generalized nature of the complaints by quoting the paragraphs in detail of complaints against the accused.)
B: Paras 29 to 57, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82 & 86 of the complaint have been copied out verbatim from the Affidavits No. I, II, III & IV filed by Shri R.B. Sreekumar, formerly Additional DG (Int.) before Nanavati-Shah Commission of Inquiry. The complainant Zakia Nasim has no personal knowledge of the allegations leveled by R.B. Sreekumar in his affidavits.
C: No specific allegations have been made against Accused Nos. 17,18, 19 & 60.
D: Accused No. 24 Babubhai Rajput is not traceable at the given address and it has come to light that no such person was ever in existence at the relevant point of time.
E: Accused No. 11 Anil Tribhovandas Patel was not in public life at the time of riots and had joined Bharatiya Janata Party only towards the end of 2002. He was elected as MLA only in December, 2002 and as such he has been wrongly implicated as an accused in the complaint without any specific role.
F: Accused No. 45 Shri Rahul Sharma and Accused No. 63 Shri Satish Verma have been listed as witnesses as well as accused persons. Smt. Zakia Nasim, Complainant and Ms. Teesta Setalvad, have stated that they are witnesses and have been inadvertently listed as accused persons…”
All these facts make it absolutely clear that the complaint is not a genuine one. There are many more inaccuracies, some of which we will see later, but all the above facts show that Zakia Jafri does not have any idea of the complaint, and that it is made for her by others. The extent of this complaint’s childish nature can be seen from the fact that Accused No. 24 was never in existence, and that the complainant’s own witnesses were named as accused!
But the mainstream media largely did not find it worth mentioning, and tried its best to suppress such childish errors of the false complaint.
… (End of preview)
The above is the beginning of the Chapter “Findings of SIT”. To read the full chapter, read the book “Gujarat Riots: The True Story”
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