Gujarat court to decide on SIT report on Feb 15

Ahmedabad, Feb 13 (ANI): An Ahmedabad court on Monday postponed its decision on hearing the closure report filed by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) in the Gulberg Society massacre case to February 15. The decision to be made is whether to make the report available to social activists or not.

Metropolitan Magistrate MS Bhatt heard the petitions filed by social activists Teesta Setalvad and Mukul Sinha that sought copies of the report filed in a sealed cover before it on Wednesday.

Last week, the SIT had filed a closure report in a sealed cover on the complaint of Zakia Jafri, the widow of slain Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was killed by rioters.

The SIT report has reportedly given a clean chit to Gurajat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the case.

Jafri, in her complaint, had sought the prosecution of Modi, and 57 others, for aiding and abetting in the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Ehsan Jafri was among 69 persons killed in the Gulberg Housing Society riot in 2002.

On September 12 last year, the Supreme Court had refused to pass any order on Modi's alleged inaction in containing the riots in 2002, and left it to the magistrate's court to decide the next course of action against him on the basis of the SIT report.

In her petition, Zakia had alleged that Modi and 62 senior government officials deliberately refused to take action to contain the state-wide riots, triggered by the February 27, 2002 Godhra train carnage.

The Supreme Court had further said that in case the magistrate decides to drop proceedings against Modi and others, he has to hear the plea of Zakia, who had filed a complaint against the chief minister and others.

Jafri had told the apex court that a proper probe should be carried out by the SIT, headed by former CBI chief R K Raghavan, into her allegations of inaction and various acts of omission and commission by Modi and others during the riots.

The apex court in 2009 had handed over the task of probing the case to SIT which submitted its report in 2011. (ANI)