Naroda Gam riot case: Court issues notice to ex-IPS officer

An SIT court, hearing the 2002 Naroda Gam riot case here, today issued a notice to former IPS officer Rahul Sharma for allegedly misplacing the CDs containing the crucial call details related to the riots.
The court of Special Judge M K Dave also issued notice to former investigating officer in the case P L Mal on an application moved in April 2015 by a group of accused in the case.
They had sought that Sharma and Mal be also made accused under CrPC section 319 (for trial of a person along with the accused of the case).
The court has posted the next hearing for February 9.

While Sharma is accused of destroying evidence by misplacing the CDs, Mal with abetting Sharma's criminal act by not making him an accused for his act.
Defence lawyer Chetan Shah had moved the application alleging that Sharma had misplaced the original CDs containing important call details of state functionaries during the riots and instead submitted a duplicate CD before the Nanavati Commission, which probed the riots.

In its reply, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) had told the court that the CDs comprising call records of the 2002 riots were misplaced but the same did not amount to an offence against Sharma.

The Ahmedabad bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in January 2016 quashed a chargesheet filed by the state government against Sharma for allegedly misplacing the CDs.
The CDs, allegedly containing call details of ministers, bureaucrats and police officers during the 2002 riots, were seen as an important piece of evidence detailing the location of the accused in various post-Godhra riots cases, including that of the Naroda Gam.
Sharma, a 1992 batch IPS officer, retired from service in 2015 on his request.
Eleven persons from a minority community were killed at Naroda Gam locality of Ahmedabad by a mob on February 28, 2002, a day after S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express was torched near the Godhra station, resulting in the death of 59 people, most of them 'karsevaks' returning from Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.

In 2009, the SIT filed a chargesheet in the case and arraigned 83 persons as accused including then state women and child development minister Maya Kodnani.
Naroda Gam massacre is one of the nine major riots cases being investigated by the Special Investigation Team.