From: Frontline, November 5, 2011
by Praful Bidwai
Integral to the planned mass-scale anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in February-March 2002 was the gigantic conspiracy to cover up the role of senior functionaries of the government, top policemen and officials in instigating and condoning the violence and in ensuring that no proper investigation would be conducted into various episodes of butchery, rape, criminal assault and arson. The intention behind the well-coordinated effort was to secure impunity for the perpetrators of a shameful orgy of targeted violence against a religious minority and the worst state-sponsored pogrom in independent India's history. One of the most nauseating instances of this was the Gulberg Society episode in Ahmedabad, in which former Member of Parliament Ehsan Jafri's limbs were severed and he and 68 others were barbarically burnt alive. This incident was investigated by more than 10 citizens' inquiry committees, composed of public intellectuals, scholars and former civil servants, all of which independently reached the same conclusion. Jafri's widow, Zakia, pursued the case and in 2006 petitioned the State police to register a first information report (FIR) against Modi and 61 others, something only the police can do under the Indian criminal justice system. When the police turned her away, she moved the Gujarat High Court, but it rejected her plea in November 2007. In April 2009, the Supreme Court directed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) it had created to take up the Gulberg case.
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