Gujarat court set to hear SIT report on 2002 riots case

New Delhi: An Ahmedabad court will on Monday hear the closure report filed by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team in the Gulbarg society massacre in the 2002 riots. It will also hear the petitions of social activists Teesta Setalvad and Mukul Sinha seeking copies of the report filed in a sealed envelope last week.

Sources have told CNN-IBN that the SIT has reportedly given a clean chit to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi among others, finding no prosecutable evidence against them.

Narendra Modi sounded confident and tweeted quoting Swami Vivekananda, "I stand for truth. Truth will never ally itself with falsehood."

It is the D-day for the Gujarat Chief Minister as the trial court is set to look into the SIT investigations into Zakia Jafri's plea, the widow of slain Congress MP Ehsan Jafri.

In April 2011, the SIT team headed by former CBI Chief RK Radhavan submitted its report in a sealed envelope to the SC. The report is now before the Gujarat court.

Sources have told CNN-IBN that the SIT report is over 1,000 pages with an additional trunk of material evidence. The SIT findings say that Modi was not a part of the conspiracy. The conclusion was arrived at after examining 1,700 statements recorded by the SIT.

Allegations on Modi say that he allowed the dead bodies of karsewaks killed in the Sabarmati express in Godhra to be brought to Ahmedabad. But according to sources the SIT says Modi's decision was justified as Godhra was more sensitive than Ahmedabad and that the hospitals in Godhra were not equipped for conducting the DNA test.

There were also allegations that Narendra Modi called the Army too late. The SIT report has used the fax sent by the Gujarat government to the Defence Ministry as its evidence.

Allegations on Modi also say that he knew about the threat to life of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri but didn't take any action. However, the SIT didn't find any evidence of any call made by Jafri to the Chief Minister or the Ahmedabad Police Commissioner when the Gulbarg society was attacked. The SIT said that they went through several call records but couldn't find any confirmation of the allegation that Jafri sought protection from Modi.

The amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran appointed by the Supreme Court to look into the lapses of the SIT has agreed with it on the most of the findings and has concluded that there is no evidence against the Gujarat Chief Minister to prosecute him.

Sources have told CNN-IBN that on several issues the amicus curiae has also differed with the SIT.

While the allegation on Modi is that during the meeting held at the CM house, he had stated that the Muslims should be taught a lesson, the SIT says no such instruction was given by the Gujarat CM. Regarding the presence of IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, it says he wasn't present in the meeting. The amicus curiae has a different view regarding the meeting.

But the SIT report does throw up several embarrassing questions for Narendra Modi.

It says that despite ghastly violent attacks on Muslims in Gulbarg society and Naroda Patiya, the reaction of the government was not the type which would have been expected of anyone. The Chief Minister tried to water down the seriousness of the situation at Gulbarg society and Naroda Patiya by saying every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The report also criticises Modi for appointing pro-VHP advocates as public prosecutors in the riot cases.

Modi did not visit riot affected areas though he was at Godhra on Feburary 27, 2002 and most damagingly for Modi, it says, the government destroyed wireless records of police conversation on February 27, 2002.

The SIT report will have ramifications, both for Narendra Modi personally, and for the BJP as a political party. Whether Modi is able to move out of the state politics and play a role at the national level could well be defined by court's ruling on the two reports.

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