File photo of Narendra Modi
Narendra Modi has said he will "share his thoughts" today on the Gujarat court verdict that has endorsed a clean chit to him in a 2002 Gujarat riots case, the only one that listed criminal charges against him. (
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The court had on Thursday evening rejected a petition by Zakia Jafri, whose husband Ehsan Jafri was burnt alive during the riots, that Mr Modi be prosecuted for conspiracy in the communal violence. She had challenged the closure report of a Supreme-Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) that said there was no prosecutable evidence against Mr Modi and 57 others. (
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For Mr Modi, who is the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) prime ministerial candidate for national elections due by May, the order is a huge shot in the arm. The Gujarat Chief Minister was attending a wedding in Goa when the judgment was pronounced and first tweeted, "Satyamev Jayate! Truth alone triumphs." (
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He later tweeted, "Leaving Goa. Will share my thoughts on the judgment with you all tomorrow." (
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His party has called it "a moral victory for the BJP and Narendra Modi." It hopes that the order will lay to rest the ghost of the 2002 communal riots that has refused to leave Mr Modi even as his political career has soared over the last decade.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley declared after the verdict, "Modi goes into the 2014 campaign untainted by propaganda. The verdict has proved that propaganda can never be a substitute for truth." He also noted that, "Modi has won three elections in this period. Today the court has said what we always believed in." (
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Zakia Jafri's lawyer has asserted that Mr Modi's relief will be short-lived; Ms Jafri would challenge the Ahmedabad court's order within a month, he said.
Ms Jafri's husband Ehsan Jafri, a former Congress MP, was among 68 people of Gulbarg Society in Ahmedabad killed by a mob on February 28, 2002. Ms Jafri alleges that her husband's frantic phone calls for help to the police and politicians were ignored.