No record of Jafri calling Modi for help, claims SIT

Team says it relied on documents supplied by state govt

AHMEDABAD / NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT), headed by former CBI director RK Raghavan, has reportedly found nothing to substantiate the allegation that slain Congress leader Ehsan Jafri had called up Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s office for help when rioters reached the Gulbarg Housing Society, sources told HT.

Sources said the SIT examined only records made available by the state authorities.

Thirty-nine people were massacred at Gulbarg society on February 28, 2002 and 30 went missing that day. These 30 people were never found and were declared dead seven years later.

The case filed by Zakia Jafri, the late Congress MP’S widow, in 2006 is the only one that names Modi and rests critically on the reported phone calls.

The SIT is also learnt to have dismissed suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s affidavit and other forms of evidence that implicated the Modi administration for the 2002 riots. Raghavan supposedly stated Bhatt was not a “reliable witness” and even the Supreme Court had not taken cognizance of the affidavit filed by him last year.

Bhatt has maintained he was present in the meeting in which Modi had allegedly asked top policemen and officials to "let Hindus vent their anger against minorities" after Godhra, in which 59 people were killed.

The report is said to have stated the testimonies of former DGP K Chakravarthy and former additional chief secretary (home) Ashoka Narain, both of whom denied Bhatt's presence in the meeting.

The issue of bringing bodies of the Godhra victims to Ahmedabad was not for inciting communal passion but there were medical and emotional reasons for doing so, the report said

The Congress did not lend much credence to the report, while the BJP said the case should be closed.