Guj govt dubs rights gp plea as untenable, calls for its rejection

Ahmedabad, Mar 13 (UNI) The Gujarat government today termed as ''misconceived and untenable'' the plea of a rights group before the Nanavati-Shah Commission, for a probe into the two compact discs (CDs) containing details of mobile telephone calls made in the city during the post-Godhra riots in 2002, and called for its outright rejection.

In its reply to an application filed by rights group Jan Sangharsh Manch (JSM), the Gujarat government said as the CDs do not contain any text or data of communication between respective mobile/telephone connection, processing them would not take the inquiry any further. ''Any blanket direction would not be in consonance with the right to privacy of individuals and ... the request is nothing but a fishing inquiry.. ,'' the Government counsel said.

The CDs, containing records of calls made or received during the period from February 27 to March 7, 2002 in the city of Ahmedabad when communal tensions were high on account of the post-Godhra riots, had been submitted by CBI officer Rahul Sharma, who was the DSP of Bhavnagar district in the riots, during his cross-examination before the Commission in 2004.

The Government counsel also said as the authenticity of the CDs are yet to be established, the applicant cannot presume them to be genuine and seek the Commission's direction to process them. He also said the suggestion to prosecute those persons whose phone numbers are found in the CDs sound far-fetched. Their authenicity can be doubted on the very ground that after they were submitted to the Commission, a newspaper ran articles on them, he added.

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