Court rejects Zakia plea against SIT’s clean chit to Modi

In what can be considered as a political shot in the arm for BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi ahead of the lok Sabha polls, the Ahmedabad Metropolitan Court on Thursday rejected the petition of Zakia Jafri challenging a clean chit given by the Supreme Court-appointed SIT to the Gujarat Chief Minister and 59 others in nine major cases of the 2002 Gujarat communal riots. The BJP has hailed the order and said that truth has prevailed and falsehood exposed.

Zakia Jafri is the widow of slain Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was killed in the infamous Gulbarg Society massacre in Ahmedabad in post-Godhra riots.

Though the order was expected to come around 11.30 am, Metropolitan Magistrate BJ Ganatra took his time and delivered the one-line order after 4.30 pm spelling out that the protest petition stands rejected and the appellant may approach a higher court. The court compound was jam-packed with lawyers, media personnel, NGO workers, and members of political parties.

The court order was greeted in Ahmedabad and Delhi by jubilant BJP workers even as the party took the opportunity to target the detractor of its PM candidate.

The BJP claimed its prime ministerial candidate has emerged stronger from the adversities he faced all these years. The party described court’s verdict as a moral victory for the party and the Gujarat Chief Minister.

“He faced a lynch mob, a hostile group in the media and some motivated NGOs. He did not allow his own focus to be disturbed. He concentrated on his primary task of working for Gujarat’s development and succeeded in communicating directly with the people. This enabled him to succeed in the State elections of 2002, 2007 and 2012,” senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said.

The leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha claimed that at the end of the day, Modi’s popular sanction has been buttressed by a judicial verdict and he now goes into the 2014 campaign untainted by propaganda. “Propaganda can never be a substitute for legally admissible evidence,” he added.

The BJP leader reiterated that allegations of Modi’s involvement in riots were “politically motivated” as Congress and its “friend NGOs” knew that they could not take on the Gujarat Chief Minister politically.

Jaitley drew a parallel between the 2002 Gujarat riots and the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 and asked if there was any other leader since Independence who took so many pro-active steps despite being subjected to such intense scrutiny.

Jafri approached the Supreme Court in 2008 alleging that Modi and others were involved in a larger conspiracy behind one of the worst communal riots in the country. Subsequently, the apex court had directed a SIT headed by former CBI director RK Raghavan to look into these allegations. The SIT summoned the Chief Minister in 2010 and interrogated him for nearly 10 hours.

But, notwithstanding this, the SIT took a four-year long investigation to give a clean chit to the Gujarat Chief Minister. As approved by the Supreme Court, Jafri filed a protest petition that went on for five months in the court of Ahmedabad Metropolitan Magistrate BJ Ganatra, who fixed his order for Thursday after the verdict was deferred twice on October 28 and December 2 this year.

A host of Jafri’s counsels contended, providing official and governmental evidence allegedly ignored by the SIT, that Modi had failed to uphold his constitutional duty and colluded with the rioters. “The State Government, led by the Chief Minister, had deliberately ignored the warnings issued by the State intelligence bureau about the return of the kar sevaks (from Ayodhya). Also, the Intelligence inputs on the build-up of rioters in several parts of the State following the Godhra carnage were ignored,’’ the counsel argued. In all there were 15 major charges against Narendra Modi.

Co-incidentally the encouraging verdict came on the first anniversary of the Modi Government, which only added one more reason for BJP cadres in Gujarat to celebrate by bursting fire-crackers and distribution of sweets. Besides, BJP’s Gujarat headquarters in Ahmedabad, all the 64 ward offices in the city had kept a celebration function to mark first anniversary. “In fact, the celebration mood doubled because of the magisterial court’s judgment,” said a senior party worker.

Gujarat BJP general secretary Vijay Rupani said that the verdict was obvious as the apex court appointed SIT had already interrogated 4,000 witnesses right from the previous day of Godhra train carnage till the final submission of SIT report. “We have full faith in the legal system of the country. However, it was the Congress which was making the whole issue politicised in order to play dirty vote bank politics,” said the former BJP MP.