Guj Government opposes petition of widow of Cong MP

Ahmedabad, Sep 5 (UNI) The Gujarat government today opposed the admission of a petition in the High Court, which seeks to register an FIR against Chief Minister Narendra Modi, his senior Cabinet colleagues and VHP leaders, stating that the Government had reopened 1958 cases and had registered 4,562 FIRs relating to 2002 post-Godhra riots.

Government counsel Kamal Trivedi told the Gujarat High Court that the Supreme Court had already intervened in the issue and cases have already been filed against several persons.

Objecting to filing the petition after five years of riots in Gulberg Soceity by Mrs Zakia Jafri, widow of ex-congress MP Ehsaan Jafri, Mr Trivedi said the applicant should have approached the lower court first.

The court had asked both Gujarat Government and Mumbai-based NGO Citizen for Justice and Peace to file their submissions in writing on September 11, the next date of hearing.

The plea, seeking registration of an FIR against Modi, his senior Cabinet colleagues during the 2002 riots and also certain senior police officers for ''lapses'' was filed by Mrs Zakia Jafri and the NGO. In all, 66 persons have been named in the petition against whom Ms Jafri sought registration of FIRs.

Trivedi said the cases pertaining to the communal riots at Gulberg Society were already registered in a Ahmedabad city police station, and if the applicant had any further evidence then she could approach the investigating agency.

Mrs Jafri had approached the High Court earlier this year after her plea to then DGP found no response.

The application in the High Court was filed based on evidence gathered by NHRC and other evidence produced before the Nanavati-Shah Inquiry Commission, probing the Sabarmati Express train carnage at Godhra and the subsequent riots.

Mrs Jafri's advocate M Tirmizi told the court the police would not take any action against Modi as the FIR of the Gulberg case does not mention his name and unless an FIR was registered separately this was not a possibility.

Mr Trivedi questioned the basis of the petition filed by Mrs Jafri seeking reinvestigation in the Gulbarg Society massacre. The records and documents the petitioners have annexed in the petition were part of several petitions filed in the Supreme Court, he submitted to the court.

UNI