Narendra Modi not involved in Gujarat riots: SIT report

New Delhi The Special Investigation Team (SIT) inquiring into the Gujarat riots is learnt to have concluded that its “preliminary inquiry” did not throw up any material “that would justify further action under the law” against Chief Minister Narendra Modi, according to Tehelka which published a report on its website based on contents it claimed to have taken from the SIT report submitted to the Supreme Court.

According to Tehelka, SIT chief, former CBI director R K Raghavan, has made the following observation in his concluding statement: “As many as 32 allegations were probed into during this preliminary inquiry. These related to several acts of omission and commission by the state government and its functionaries, including the chief minister. A few of these alone were in fact substantiated... the substantiated allegations did not throw up material that would justify further action under the law”.

The SIT was set up by the Supreme Court which is hearing several petitions related to the 2002 riots cases. It submitted its final report to the court last year in a sealed cover. The magazine claimed to have accessed the 600-page report and ran extracts from it. It said the SIT report had passed adverse remarks against Modi:

n “In spite of the fact that ghastly and violent attacks had taken place on Muslims at Gulbarg Society and elsewhere, the reaction of the government was not the type that would have been expected by anyone. The CM had tried to water down the seriousness of the situation at Gulbarg Society, Naroda Patiya and other places by saying every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” (Page 69)

n Modi’s statement “accusing some elements in Godhra and the neighbourhood as possessing a criminal tendency was sweeping and offensive, coming as it did from a chief minister, that too at a critical time when Hindu-Muslim tempers were running high”. (Page 13 of chairman’s comments)

n “His (Modi’s) implied justification of the killings of innocent members of the minority community read together with an absence of a strong condemnation of the violence that followed Godhra suggest a partisan stance at a critical juncture when the state had been badly disturbed by communal violence.” (Page 153)

n Narendra Modi displayed a “discriminatory attitude by not visiting riot-affected areas in Ahmedabad where a large number of Muslims were killed though he went to Godhra the same day, traveling almost 300 km on a single day” (Page 67). “Narendra Modi did not cite specific reasons why he did not visit the affected areas in Ahmedabad as promptly as he did in case of Godhra train carnage” (Page 8 of chairman’s comments).