Gujarat court to hear Zakia Jafri's petition against Modi

Ahmedabad, April 24: A protest petition filed by Zakia Jafri seeking rejection of the SIT report giving clean chit to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others in the post-Godhra riots case is likely to come up for hearing in a local court on Wednesday.

Zakia, the wife of 2002 post-Godhra riots victim and former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed in the Gulbarg Society riots along with 68 others, had filed the petition in the court of Metropolitan Magistrate BJ Ganatra earlier in April 2013.

She sought rejection in toto of the closure report filed by the Supreme Court-appointed SIT on February 08, 2012.

Metropolitan Magistrate BJ Ganatra had ordered to hear the case on daily basis from April 24, 2013. "It is most likely that SIT will start its argument as it will be opposing our petition," advocate SM Vora, representing Zakia in the case, told a news agency. In her petition, Zakia demanded filing of chargesheet against Modi and 58 others whom she had named in her complaint filed before the Supreme Court on June 08, 2006.

The petition also sought further investigations into the case by an independent agency other than the SIT, headed by former CBI director RK Raghavan. After the SIT submitted its final report to the Supreme Court, monitoring the investigations, it directed the SIT to file the closure report before a local court in the city and provide all papers to Jafri to enable her to file a protest petition. Jafri in her petition accused Modi and his Cabinet colleagues, besides VHP leaders, of "hatching a cold-blooded conspiracy to manipulate the post-Godhra riot incidents".

Jafri in her petition accused Modi and his Cabinet colleagues of hatching a cold-blooded conspiracy to manipulate the post-Godhra riot incidents.

The 514-petition had been submitted before the court in three volumes of annexures and 10 CDs. Jafri had also accused the SIT of "covering up" the riot- related crimes and "misleading" the court by letting Modi and others off the hook by conveniently ignoring the evidence at its disposal.

PTI