2002 Guj riots: HC adjourns hearing on Zakia's plea

Ahmedabad, Jul 15: The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday adjourned hearing on a petition of Zakia Jafri, the widow of slain ex-Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging a local court order upholding a clean chit given by SIT to the then chief minister Narendra Modi and others in a 2002 riots case.

Justice S G Shah has posted the hearing for October 15 after Zakia sought time to verify the translation of the voluminous documents in the case.

On December 26 last year, Metropolitan Magistrate B J Ganatra here rejected Zakia's protest petition challenging the Supreme Court-appointed SIT's clean chit to Modi.

On March 15, she moved the high court against the magistrate's order upholding the SIT's closure report. Her petition seeks "to make Modi and 59 others accused on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit a mass murder, arson... And also tampering with evidence and destroying records of the Gujarat Home Department".

The petition alleges that the magistrate accepted SIT's closure report with a "non-application of mind".

It also alleges that destruction of key records was carried out to ensure injustice to the victims, in which the Chief Minister's office and the state home department were allegedly involved.

On February 8, 2012, the Supreme Court-appointed SIT had filed a closure report and given a clean chit to Modi and others.

On February 28, 2002, following the Godhra train fire incident, 68 people including Ehsan Jafri were killed by a mob at Gulbarg Society here, as riots swept many parts of Gujarat.

PTI