Prosecute ex-Gujarat top cop for missing CD: Riot accused

Some accused in the Naroda Gam massacre case of 2002 have moved a special court seeking prosecution of former IPS officer Rahul Sharma for allegedly misplacing a CD containing important call details related to the post-Godhra riots.
Defence lawyer Chetan Shah yesterday submitted an application in this regard on behalf of 65 accused before the trial court presided over by judge P B Desai.
Eighty-three people, including former BJP Minister Maya Kodnani and VHP leader Jaideep Patel, have been made accused by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigating Team (SIT) for the massacre at Naroda Gam, a city suburb.
Shah alleged Sharma had misplaced the original CD, which contained important call details of State functionaries during the communal violence, and submitted a duplicate of it before the inquiry commission headed by Justice G T Nanavati.

Sharma had allegedly handed over the CD to then Joint Police Commissioner P P Pandey, who has denied receiving any such disc, Shah said in the plea, which is likely to come up for hearing before the court in due course.
Sharma assisted in riot case investigations for a brief period in 2002. The 1992-batch IPS officer had taken on the Gujarat government on the 2002 communal riots and provided crucial case related details to the Nanavati panel.

Sharma sought early retirement from service in November last year and his request was accepted by the Gujarat Home Department in February 2015.

As many as 11 members of a minority community were killed by a rioting mob in Naroda Gam on February 28, 2002, a day after the Sabarmati Express was set ablaze, killing 59 passengers near Godhra station, about 135 km from here.
The SIT had in 2009 filed a charge sheet and arraigned 83 people as accused in the case.