2002 Gujarat Riots: SC to hear Zakia Jafri's plea against SIT clean chit to then CM Narendra Modi on Nov 19

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday accepted to hear a plea filed by Zakia Jafri challenging a lower court order upholding the special investigation team's clean chit to the then chief minister Narendra Modi and others in connection with the 2002 post- Godhra riots. The plea by Zakia Jafri who is the widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri will be heard by the apex court on 19th November. In the case, Special Investigation Team, which investigated the riots, gave a clean chit to then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi. In 2017, Jafri had moved the criminal review petition against a magistrate's order upholding the clean chit given by the SIT to Modi and others regarding the allegations of a "larger criminal conspiracy" behind the riots. Zakia had alleged that Modi delayed sending police to the spot despite repeated requests and accused the chief minister and many others, including ministers and police officers, of involvement in the larger conspiracy behind the riots, that left over a 1,000 people dead. The Gujarat High Court had rejected the plea and upheld SIT’s verdict which said that there was no basis to proceed against the chief minister. Ehsan Jafri, a Congress leader, was among 68 people who were killed at the Gulberg Society here when a mob attacked it on February 28, 2002. The riots had broken out in Gujarat after the Godhra train burning incident of February 27, in which 59 people were burnt to death following a fire inside the Sabarmati Express train near the Godhra railway station who were returning from Ayodhya.