Zakia files protest petition against SIT clean chit to Modi

Zakia Jafri, wife of 2002 post-Godhra riots victim and former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, today filed a protest petition in a local court seeking rejection of the SIT report giving a clean chit to Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others in the Gulburg Society riot case.
The petition also sought further investigations into the case by an independent agency other than the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team and filing of charge sheet against Modi and others.
The court of Metropolitan Magistrate B J Ganatra will hear Zakia's petition on daily basis from April 24.
"The petition seeks rejection in toto the SIT Closure Report filed in the same court on February 8, 2012 and requested filing of charge sheet against all the 59 accused, including Modi, named in Jafri's complaint filed on June 8, 2006 before the Supreme Court," said Zakia's counsel S M Vora.

The petition requested that the probe be assigned to an independent agency and not to the Special Investigation Team, headed by former CBI director R K Raghavan.
"The petition says that the Gulberg Society massacre was a cold-blooded conspiracy to manipulate the post-Godhra riot incidents, and was planned and executed by Modi with his cabinet colleagues and other co-accused including VHP leaders," Vora said.

The 514-page petition was submitted before the court in three volumes of annexures and 10 CDs.
"The petitioner argues that the SIT had adequate documents and statements to come to a conclusion against all the accused, however, it decided to cover up the crimes and misled the court by giving clean chit to them," Vora said.

After the SIT submitted its final report to the Supreme Court, monitoring the investigations, it directed the SIT to file the closure report before a local court in the city and provide all papers to Jafri to enable her to file a protest petition.
Ehsan Jafri, a former Congress MP, was among the 69 people killed in the Gulberg Housing Society riots on February 28, 2002.