Senior Cop Implicates Gujarat CM Modi in Godhra Riots
New Delhi, Apr 22 (Agencies): Senior IPS officer Sanjay Bhatt, who was posted in the Intelligence Department, has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court accusing Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi of complicity in the 2002 Godhra case.
Bhatt in his affidavit states that he attended a meeting held at the chief minister's residence on February 27, 2002.
Stating that the senior police officials had blindly followed Modis instructions in 2002, the officer in his affidavit further stated that this was responsible for the deterioration in the law and order situation in the state.
The officer claimed that he has filed this affidavit in the apex court because he has no faith in the Special Investigation Team ( SIT) appointed to probe the case.
Bhatt has also made a request to the apex court to provide protection to him and his family.
A special court in Ahmedabad had on March 1 awarded death penalty to eleven accused and life imprisonment to 20 others in the 2002 Godhra train burning case.
Earlier on February 22, the court convicted 31 and acquitted 63 others, including the prime conspirator Maulvi Hussain Umarji
Apart from the charges of murder, attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy, the accused were convicted under IPC sections 147, 148 (rioting with deadly weapons), 323, 324, 325, 326 (causing hurt), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on religious grounds), various sections of the Indian Railways Act, Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act and Bombay Police Act.
The court pronounced judgment on the role of over 90 people accused of conspiring and burning the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002. Fifty-nine people, mostly Kar Sewaks returning from Ayodhya, were killed in the incident.
Following the Godhra train burning incident, widespread communal riots broke out in various parts of Gujarat in which over 1,000 people, mostly from the minority community, were killed.
Truth is out on Gujarat riots: Teesta Setalvad
Social activist Teesta Setalvad Friday said the truth has finally come out on the 2002 Gujarat riots as a senior police officer blamed Chief Minister Narendra Modi of direct complicity in the anti-Muslim carnage that left over 1,000 people dead.
"All I can say id that truth has finally comes out. Despite the very best efforts of a very vindictive government using money and muscle power, the truth has finally come out," Setalvad, who has been campaigning against Modi, said reacting to the affidavit filed by Sanjiv Bhatt in the Supreme Court.
However, she said there were reservations that activists in Gujarat have against the Special Investigation Team that the Supreme Court set up to probe the riots cases.
"We have certain reservations of SIT in 2009. We continue to have reservations. But the fact that the SC is watching the case... the fact that we have independent amicus curiae... despite whatever the (Gujarat) government tried to do, the truth will come out," she added.
Sanjiv Bhatt, a 1988 Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, has blamed Narendra Modi for the 2002 "communal carnage", saying he wanted Muslims to be taught "a lesson" for the train burning at Godhra that left 59 Hindus dead. Bhatt also said in an affidavit to the Supreme Court that the SIT set up by the apex court seemed uninterested in unravelling the larger conspiracy behind the 2002 violence that swept Gujarat.