During his cross-examination at the Nanavati-Mehta Commission probing the 2002 train burning and the subsequent riots, Zadaphia denied that he had ever asked Urban Development Minister IK Jadeja to be present at the DGP’s office.
Jadeja had told the commission earlier that he had camped at the DGP’s office on being asked by Zadaphia in order to rule out any communication gap.
Zadaphia, who has since floated his own MahaGujarat Janata Party (MJP) after being expelled from the BJP during the run-up to the 2007 Assembly polls, gave evasive replies to most of the questions fielded by Jan Sangharsh Manch counsel Mukul Sinha. “I do not remember” and “I was not aware” were the most common refrains of Zadaphia to many questions.
However, he revealed that the decision to bring the bodies of the Godhra carnage victims to Ahmedabad was taken by Chief Minister Narendra Modi and another senior Minister Ashok Bhatt.
Zadaphia could not explain on what basis he had made a statement earlier that bringing the bodies to Ahmedabad did not spark off the riots in the city during the bandh called by the Viswa Hindu Parishad and supported by the ruling BJP.
He also added that the decision to conduct post mortem of the victims’ bodies was not taken by him. The former Minister also revealed that the bodies were not identified by then but could not explain how then it was presumed that they belonged to Ahmedabad, the reason cited for bringing them to the city for their last rites.
Zadaphia said that as the Minister of State of Home, he had the independent charge of only border security and police housing departments and, thus, he did not take any decisions regarding internal security and law & order matters.
Being the Cabinet minister for Home Affairs, the Chief Minister was responsible for matters like intelligence, internal security, transfers and law & order, Zadaphia told the two-judge commission adding that he had no independent charge of these departments.
Zadaphia also denied the contention of suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt that the Minister of State was continuously kept informed about the law and order situation through fax messages. The former Minister said that he did not any such messages as claimed by Bhatt.
With cross-examination of Zadaphia concluding on Friday, the only top functoinary who now remains to be exmined by the two-judge commission is Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The ruling of a division bench of the High Court on the contentious issue of summoning Modi is awaited next week.
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