SIT provides 2002 riots probe report to Zakia Jafri

A week after the Supreme Court order, the wife of slain ex-Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was on Wednesday given a copy of preliminary report of SIT which probed her complaint against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others, and gave clean chit to them in the post-Godhra riots.

The report was prepared by A K Malhotra, a member of the Special Investigation Team.

Following the apex court order, SIT also submitted two reports of Himanshu Shukla -- investigating officer in the case -- to a court here. Copies of these reports were handed over to lawyers of Zakia Jafri by metropolitan magistrate B J Ganatra.

Upon receiving the three reports, advocate S M Vora, who appeared for Zakia, requested the court to grant time to verify whether material supplied to them were in conformity with the apex court order or not.

The magistrate, while accepting Vora's plea, fixed February 18 as the next date of hearing.

Following submission of the closure report, which absolved Modi and others of any complicity in the post-Godhra riots, Zakia had sought the preliminary report submitted by Malhotra on May 12, 2010 to the apex court in a sealed envelope.

The metropolitan court had turned down her request to obtain a copy of the report. During proceedings, the court had also rejected Zakia's plea to file a protest petition against the closure report on the grounds of delay.

She had challenged these decisions before the Supreme Court which, on February 7, set aside the lower court's orders and directed SIT to supply the entire inquiry report to her.

"We clarify that the petitioner (Zakia) is entitled to entire inquiry report placed in sealed envelope before this court on May 12, 2010," a Supreme Court bench had said.

While submitting the three reports, SIT today requested the court to restrain Zakia and her counsels from using these materials "elsewhere".

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