New Delhi:
This could be the blessing in thinly-veiled disguise that supporters of Narenda Modi have been waiting for.
The credibility of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that questioned him for nine hours recently is being questioned aggressively. And the Supreme Court has asked the SIT not to associate two senior police officers - Geeta Johri and Shivanand Jha - with its inquiry till further orders.
The six-member SIT team, headed by RK Raghavan, is looking into ten cases of communal riots in Gujarat in 2002. Nine of those cases are already at the trial stage based on the groundwork done by the SIT. An NGO has asked that these cases all be cancelled and that the SIT be reconstituted. The Supreme Court will decide that request on the 19th of this month.
One of the members whose position on the SIT has been challenged is Surat Police Commissioner Shivanand Jha. He has been accused of a complicit role in the riots by Zakia Jafri, whose husband and former Congress MP, Ehsan Jafri was burnt alive at his home in Ahemedabad's Gulbarag Society. In her petition to the Supreme Court, Jafri's widow has accused Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and nearly 60 other policemen and bureaucrats of conspiring to ensure that those being attacked in the riots did not receive any help. At the time, Shivanand Jha was a senior police officer in Ahmedabad City.
The other SIT member whose participation in the inquiry has been challenged is Geetha Johri, currently Police Commissioner of Rajkot.
In Jaunary this year, she was pulled up by the Supreme Court for her investigation of what's called the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case. In November 2005, Sohrabuddin and his wife were allegedly pulled off a bus and moved to a farmhouse in Gandhinagar by the Gujarat Anti-Terror Squad. Sohrabuddin was accused of being a gangster and was shot dead. His wife, Kauser Bi, disappeared. The Supreme Court said that Johri had delayed the Sohrabuddin inquiry.
Last month, for the first time, Modi explained his role in the riots. He appeared before the SIT for nine hours. His supporters have repeatedly pointed out that the SIT has no moral authority, given that its own members have been taken to court over alleged lapses in their own behaviour.