Gujarat riots case: The petition was filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was among the 68 killed in what is known as the Gulberg Society massacre.
The Supreme Court on Friday said the appeal made by the wife of a Congress MP against the acquittal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots case is “virtuous”.
Upholding the approval issued by a special investigation team to the then chief minister of the state, the top court dismissed the petition filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of Ehsan Jafri, who was among the 68 killed in Gulbarga. Society massacre.
It was one of the worst incidents of violence in the riots that started after a fire broke out in a train compartment carrying pilgrims in Godhra a day earlier, killing 59 people.
Ms Jafri, 84, had called for a fresh probe into the communal riots, alleging a larger conspiracy involving politicians and the police. Supreme Court Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar had reserved the judgment last December.
The massacre at Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Society – a cluster of 29 bungalows and 10 apartment buildings mostly inhabited by Muslims – was one of 10 major cases of the Gujarat riots that were re-examined by a special team appointed by the Supreme Court.
Former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was among 68 people who were dragged, hacked and burnt by the rioters. Zakia Jafri had alleged that the Congress leader’s phone calls to police officials and senior politicians seeking help went unanswered.
The Special Investigation Team or SIT submitted its closure report in February 2012, a decade after the riots, and acquitted Prime Minister Modi and 63 others citing “no prosecutable evidence”.
In 2016, a special court in Ahmedabad convicted 24 attackers for the massacre, which the court described as “the darkest day in the history of civil society”. But the court, which acquitted 36 people, including a BJP corporator in this case, underlined that there was no bigger conspiracy than this.
In 2002, over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in three-day violence in Gujarat.
