Thread by @churumuri

🪡 While upholding the findings of the Special Investigation Team that gave a clean chit to @narendramodi in the #ZakiaJafri case, SC added that SIT had “come out with flying colours”.

Q: When exactly did Modi learn of the massacre on 28 Feb 2002—and how well did SIT quiz him?

2️⃣ In his reply to SIT in 2010, Modi claimed he learnt of the #GulbergSociety massacre only at a meeting that evening, at 8.30 pm.

Really?

While a mob of thousands attacked a Muslim pocket in #Ahmedabad, the CM—who *also* held the home portfolio—was unaware for 5 full hours?

3️⃣ The implausibility of Modi’s defence is brought out by former @IndianExpress and @timesofindia legal affairs editor Manoj Mitta.

In his 2014 book, ‘The Fiction of Fact-Finding: Modi and Godhra’, Mitta reveals how #SIT bought into Modi’s claim with barely any challenge.

4️⃣ Zakia Jafri’s complaint named #NarendraModi as accused no.1 along with 62 others for the carnage in 14 of Gujarat’s 25 districts.

SIT conducted a probe into Jafri’s complaint *without* fulfilling the precondition of registering an FIR.

No FIR even after preliminary enquiry.

5️⃣ SIT chairman R.K. Raghavan, a former CBI director, did *not* interrogate @narendramodi although he was in Ahmedabad that day, 27 March 2010.

His explanation was that in keeping with CBI practice, he left it to the Investigating Officer to examine the accused person.

6️⃣ Modi’s statement before the SIT was *not* recorded under Section 161 CrPC, a provision invoked to question any person “supposed to be acquainted with the facts and circumstances of the case”.

However, SIT’s closure report—the clean chit—relied implicitly on Modi’s testimony.

7️⃣ Retired CBI officer A.K. Malhotra, who interrogated Modi, studiously refrained from challenging any of his replies.

Writes Manoj Mitta: “It seemed as if Malhotra’s brief was more to place Modi’s defence on record rather than to ferret out any inconsistency or wrongdoing.”

8️⃣ Malhotra’s feeble questioning allowed Modi to wriggle out of his bid to magnify the post-Godhra arson as a “terror attack”.

An official press release on 27 Feb 2002 had quoted him as saying the #Godhra incident was a “preplanned inhuman collective violent act of terrorism”.

9️⃣ SIT also let Modi off the hook on the precise time he said he learnt of the Gulberg Society massacre.

By SIT’s own findings, Gulberg Society had been set ablaze and lives lost (including that of Ehsan Jafri) by 3.45 pm.

But Modi claims he was “informed” of it at 8.30 pm?

Modi had held a law and order review meeting at 1 pm, when things were coming to a boil.

Joint Commissioner M.K. Tandon had already visited Gulberg Society around 11.30 am and ordered a ‘striking force’ to burst tear gas shells to disperse “a mob of around 1,000 Hindu rioters”.

In the sequence of events reconstructed by SIT, at 12.20 pm, the police control room received a message from the Meghaninagar police station asking for reinforcements.

The mob, which had regrouped at Gulberg and grown to 10,000-strong, was indulging in stone-pelting and arson.

SIT records that at 2.05 pm, 2.14 pm and 2.45 pm there were more messages for reinforcements.

On the instructions of Ahmedabad’s police chief P.C. Pande at 3.16 pm, another police officer P.B. Gondia had reached Gulberg Society at 4.05 pm.

But Modi didn’t know till 8.30 pm?

At 4 pm, Modi held a review meeting, 3 km from Gulberg.

Between 4.30 pm and 5.45 pm, he announced the decision to call in the Army.

But he learnt of a massacre that killed former MP #EhsanJafri only at 8.30 pm?

SIT did *not* contest these seemingly obvious contradictions.

1️⃣0️⃣ Modi might have feigned ignorance to distance himself from the failure of police to prevent the massacre despite their presence during the prolonged siege of Gulberg Society and all the related communications and actions evident from SIT records.

But why did SIT not ask?

On the other hand, assume for a moment that Modi’s claim of being out of the loop on the Gulberg Society massacre till 8.30 pm is true.

Why did SIT make no attempt to inquire if the officials briefing him in those meetings had conspired to withhold all information from him?

1️⃣1️⃣ SIT got away with such shoddy investigation despite this observation from the SC’s amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran in his interim report in January 2011:

“There is nothing to show that the CM intervened on 28.02.2002 when the riots were taking place.”

1️⃣2️⃣ Although it could be just the tip of the iceberg, the mystery about Narendra Modi’s handling of the Gulberg Society massacre has remained unresolved.

And it will remain so in view of the Supreme Court’s unqualified praise for SIT and exoneration of Modi and his officials.

1️⃣3️⃣ “Under R.K. Raghavan, the SIT succeeded in securing convictions in almost every case it took to trial,” reported ‘The Telegraph’.

All, except the case in which Modi appeared before it in 2010.

In 2017, Raghavan was named ambassador to Cyprus.