Times of India
Gujarat questions IPS officer for furnishing riots call data
Saeed Khan, TNN, Feb 5, 2011, 03.56pm IST
AHMEDABAD: Following the Special Investigation Team's (SIT) report that indicted Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendar Modi for his alleged complicity in the 2002 riots, the state government has taken a senior IPS officer to task for sharing telephone records with various inquiry panels.
The Gujarat administration issued a show-cause notice to senior IPS officer, Rahul Sharma, asking him why he should not be charge-sheeted for handing over the telephone records concerning the 2002 riots to inquiry panels without obtaining due permission from the government.
The in-charge Director General of Police Chitranjan Singh confirmed the issuance of the show-cause notice and added that the government had granted 15-day time to Sharma to reply to the notice.
Sharma was posted in Ahmedabad during riots. He had asked private service providers like Celforce and AT&T to furnish details of calls made across the state during late February and early March of 2002. The CDs obtained by Sharma, however, went missing before it was brought on record by the investigating agency, the city crime branch that probed three major massacres of the city at Naroda Patia, Naroda Gam and Gulbarg Society.
When Sharma was called for deposition at the Nanavati-Shah commission, he submitted a copy of the CD to the inquiry panel. Later, he also submitted a copy of call records to the Banerjee committee, set up by former union railway minister, Laloo Prasad to probe the incident of fire in S-6 of Sabarmati Express at Godhra station on February 27, 2002. It was after killing of 59 passengers in this incident, violence spread across the state resulting in more than 1,100 deaths.
After the Supreme Court set up a special investigation team in 2008, Sharma was one of the key witnesses for the SIT to probe the larger conspiracy behind the riots. SIT also got telephone details from Sharma. He has been examined by one of the special courts set up to hear post-Godhra riots cases.
Following the recent SIT report, the Modi government questioned Sharma on why he furnished the data before the probe panels without consulting the government.
Interestingly, the Narendra Modi government has been questioning the authenticity of the call details provided by Sharma to different inquiry fora. When the chief minister was sought to be questioned in connection with the 2002 riots on basis of the call details, the government raised a question on veracity of the data claiming before the Godhra probe panel that the CD furnished by the senior cop was not verified by any authority.
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