In the latest hearing of the 2002 Gujarat Riots case, Kapil Sibal representing Zakia Jafri, widow of Late Congress MP Ehsan Jafri told the Supreme Court that the Special Investigation Team should itself be investigated. The SIT gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the murder of Ehsan Jafri.
Senior Counsel Kapil Sibal said that the SIT did not do the investigation but what they did was a “collaborative exercise”.
In the statement, he said that the SIT was coming to conclusions that were against the facts that they knew of. He added that the SIT should itself be investigated.
“I am not concerned with individuals. I am concerned with the process. I am only saying SIT did not do its job. It was an act of protection. It did a collaborative exercise,” he said.
Sibal informed the court that there was evidence in form of electronic records which included the call data records of the senior police officials and mobs trying to identify the houses of Muslims and all of this points towards a conspiracy.
He contended that the SIT ignored all of the evidence and did not further investigate the matter.
Magistrate has ignored all of this, High Court has ignored all of this,” Sibal said.
He further pointed out that the SIT officials along with the Police were “rehabilitated in a big way”. He said RK Raghavan who headed the SIT was promoted to the High Commissioner of Cyprus.
Sibal further elaborated on the call data records of the then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner PC Pandey which showed that he had had a conversation with the accused. Sibal submitted that the SIT said that they were handling the dead bodies of Godhra victims but the call records showed that he was in the office the whole day.
“If he was so concerned would he have allowed the bodies to be brought by road from Godhra to Ahmedabad and allowed passions to flare up. PC Pandey was one of the worst collaborators. He later became DGP of Gujarat. The journey from accused to DGP is disconcerting,” Sibal submitted.
Kapil Sibal pointed out that all the points are targeted towards a conspiracy.
“No judge can say there was no conspiracy. Who all were involved and why, needed further probe,” he said.
During the hearing, Sibal made parallels of the 2002 Gujarat riots with the 1984 Anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. He said that during the riots in Delhi he was living at the Maharani Badh and two of the houses of two Sikh men were identified by the mob.
“They came only for those houses,” Sibal said.
He said similarly, the mob identified the Muslim houses during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
