New Delhi, (Asian independent) Zakia Jafri, widow of late former Gujarat Congress MLA Ehsan Jafri, on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that she is not concerned about high dignitaries and there is no politics, but rather the issue is about law and order, and the right of the individuals.
Zakia Jafri has moved the Supreme Court challenging the SIT report, which gave clean chit to the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other high functionaries in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing her, submitted before a bench headed by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar that his client was “not concerned about any high dignitaries here. There is no politics in this. This is just about law and order, rights of individuals”.
He added that his client’s case is that there was a larger conspiracy at play — bureaucratic inaction, police complicity, hate speech and a conspiracy to unleash violence.
Sibal submitted that the petitioner filed a complaint to DGP Gujarat categorically alleging there is a widespread conspiracy, which led to crumbling law-and-order situation in the state after Godhra carnage. He added the SIT has not produced relevant material before the court.
As this, the bench queried Sibal: “Documents which you wanted to rely on were not looked at by SIT?”
Sibal emphasised that the republic stands on what the court decides and reiterated that there was no politics involved here.
“I don’t want anyone to be named, anyone to be indicted… but it is a law and order issue. This should not happen again. I only want investigation, I do not want any convictions at this stage,” he said. He further added that this is not a political issue, rather an administrative failure of the state.
Sibal added that there are 23,000 pages worth of material, which does not limit to Gulbarga Society carnage alone, and emphasised that nobody has gone into these pages so far.
“We only want this court to look at these pages. That is all we want. If SC limits it to Gulbarga, what happens to the rule of law?” he asked.
The top court is likely to continue hearing the matter on Wednesday.
Zakia Jafri’s husband was killed in the Gulberg Housing Society massacre during the 2002 Gujarat riots. She moved the top court challenging the SIT report which ruled out any “larger conspiracy” by high state functionaries in instigating the communal riots post Godhra massacre.
