The Supreme Court today dismissed Zakia Jafri's plea in the 2002 Gujarat carnage challenging the closure report by the Special Investigations Team. But is this really a clean chit ?
A three judge bench of the Supreme Court of India today dismissed the appeal by Zakia Jafri, the wife of former Member of Parliament, Ahsaan Jafri who was murdered by a Hindu mob in 2002. Jafri was murdered in the infamous Gulbarg Society massacre, one of the most gruesome episodes of the 2002 carnage of Muslims, a blot on the tenure of Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat. In the Gulbarg Society case, Modi was himself summoned by the SIT in 2011 and questioned by the team led by R.K.Raghavan, a former CBI director.
The appeal by Ms. Jafri was against the closure report by the Special Investigations Team formed to look into the Gujarat riots that allegedly gave a ‘clean chit’ to Modi. How does the SIT give a ‘clean chit’ to a man who was never made an accused by the SIT in the case ? ask Gujarat observers. But today, on this day when headline management and Public relations blitzkrieg will focus on the ‘clean chit’, I am submitting an aspect that will be lost in the chaos. Am also reproducing my conversation with G.C.Raigar, the head of Intelligence in Gujarat during the 2002 carnage. This verbatim transcript from my book Gujarat Files is a part of hundreds of conversations that took place with bureaucrats, police heads and those in position of power during 2002 . (https://www.amazon.in/Gujarat-Files-Anatomy-Cover-Up/dp/1943438889)
To begin with, most of the officials who were grilled by the Special Investigations Team had confessed ignorance, amnesia and naivete over the events of 2002. Many of these officials in their own taped conversations with me, published in my book, Gujarat Files had confessed to the ‘complicity by silence’ of Narendra Modi who they said, looked the other way when Muslims were being butchered. The Supreme Court of India in an open court in 2004 had called the Narendra Modi government, ‘modern day neroes’ who looked the other way as Gujarat was burning.
At no point, did any investigating agency, ever ask me for the tapes of these conversations that I had publicly asked to be examined since 2016. In the year 2019, I had made an appeal to the Supreme Court to examine the tapes as evidence (https://caravanmagazine.in/law/appeal-supreme-court-haren-pandya-examine-gujarat-files-rana-ayyub-evidence). As I write this, the tapes are being used as a part of a documentary on my book, Gujarat Files. However if the courts and investigating agencies so wish, the tapes will always be made accessible to them.
This transcript is a verbatim transcription of the taped conversation. I spoke to Raigar posing as Maithili Tyagi, a student of the American Film Institute Conservatory in California during an undercover investigation in 2010. Here is a part of the Q&A with him.
Q ) But tell me that Modi part, that everybody holds him responsible for the 2002 riots.
A ) Don’t make me talk about it. I have just gotten out of it.
Q) You where in the midst of it when it was happening ?
A) I was
Q) Quite a sore point ?
A ) I want to forget those three months of the riots. Certain things happened which should not have happened.
Q) Really ? Hurt your conscience too ?
A) Yes, it did, it did.
Q) Ashok Narayan (the Home Secretary) also said that..
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