Gujarat Govt opposes petition of Ehsaan Jafri's widow

Ahmedabad, Sep 5 (UNI) The Gujarat Government today opposed the admission of a petition in the High Court seeking to register a first information report (FIR) against Chief Minister Narendra Modi, his senior Cabinet colleagues and VHP leaders, stating that the government had already reopened 1,958 cases and registered 4,562 FIRs relating to the 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 been filed against several people.

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

The court asked both the Gujarat Government and Mumbai-based NGO Citizens 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 Ms Jafri and the NGO. In all, 66 persons have been named in the petition against whom she sought registration of FIRs.

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

Ms 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.

Advocate M Tirmizi, representing Ms Jafri, told the court that the police would not take any action against Mr 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 Ms Jafri seeking reinvestigation in the Gulberg 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