The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the post-Godhra 2002 riots in Gujarat filed its final report before a local court on Wednesday but there was no official confirmation whether it had closed the cases against Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
TV channels reported tonight that Modi got relief in the SIT report which, they said, has not found any evidence of Chief Minister aiding and abetting the riots following a complaint against him and 62 others by Zakia Jaffri demanding his prosecution. However, there was no official confirmation and no SIT official was available for comment.
Zakia's former Congress MP husband Ehsan Jaffri was among the 69 persons killed in the Gulberg Housing society riots. Around 1,200 people were killed in the communal riots.
The report was submitted in a sealed envelope by SIT officials in a magisterial court here as directed by the Supreme court, sources in the court said. The magistrate has to now take cognisance of the report.
It was submitted on a day when the Gujarat High Court dealt a major blow to the Modi government censuring it for ‘inaction and negligence’ during the riots, holding that this had resulted in an ‘anarchic’ situation.
On September 12 last year, the Supreme Court had refused to pass any order on Modi's alleged inaction to contain riots in 2002 and left it to the concerned magistrate's court to decide the course of action against him on the basis of the SIT report.
The apex court was hearing a petition by Zakia alleging that Modi and 62 top government officials deliberately refused to take action to contain the state-wide riots, triggered by the February 27, 2002 Godhra train carnage.
The SC had further said 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 Gujarat Chief Minister and others.
Jaffri 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 earlier handed over the task of probing the case to SIT which submitted its report in 2011.