'Full of contradictions': Court criticises SC-appointed SIT in Naroda Gam case

A special court here which acquitted all the 67 accused in the Naroda Gam postGodhra riots case has criticised the probe conducted into it by a Special Investigation Team SIT formed by the Supreme Court and said the evidence of the prosecutions witnesses was full of contradictions and could not be relied uponEleven persons were burnt alive in the Naroda Gam area of Ahmedabad district in Gujarat on February 28 2002 when a bandh call was given by right wing organisations to protest against the burning of Sabarmati Express train in Godhra a day beforeThe court of special judge S K Baxi on April 20 acquitted all the 67 accused including former state Bharatiya Janata Party BJP minister Maya Kodnani exVishwa Hindu Parishad leader Jaydeep Patel and former Bajrang Dal leader Babu BajrangiA copy of the court order was made available on TuesdayThe court observed that when the probe into the case was handed over to the SIT the responsibility of its investigation officer became special and the probe into the case is expected to be suchThe evidence on record in connection with the incident dated February 28 2002 does not in any way suggest that any of the accused formed an illegal group with common intention and purpose for criminal conspiracy it said while discarding the angle of criminal conspiracy put forth by the prosecutionThe claim of criminal conspiracy was made by witnesses sixandahalf years after the incident and the SIT did not bother to verify their statements which were in contradiction to statements given earlier to the Gujarat police officers before 2008 it saidThe SIT took over the investigation into the case from the police in 2008Further while the fact that property and lives of the minority community in the area were destroyed in an attack by an unidentified mob the prosecution failed to establish that it was done by the accused after they entered into a criminal conspiracy and formed unlawful assembly to do so as claimed by it the court saidOn perusal of the written pleadings and the judgments the parties have not proved the facts that the accused have formed a criminal conspiracy to commit any misdeed or caused the death of any person on the basis of a common intention it saidThe court accepted the alibi of 21 accused since acquitted including Kodnani VHP leader Patel and Bajrangi It said the SIT investigation officers should have investigated the alibis produced by them which they did notAlso readApex court rejects pleas against movie The Kerala StoryKodnani had called the then BJP president Amit Shah now Union Home Minister as a witness to prove her alibi which was accepted by the courtThe former minister had requested the court to summon Shah to prove her alibi that she was present in the Gujarat Assembly and later at Ahmedabads Sola Civil Hospital and not at Naroda Gam where the massacre took place The court also said the evidence of witnesses is not consistent with each other and reliable Even the account of star witnesses produced by the prosecution is not consistent with each other and reliable and is full of contradictionsSuch evidence cannot be relied upon to implicate the accused and prove their crime it said The prosecution also failed to prove the presence of the accused at the place it addedFurther the call details of the accused presented by the SIT also do not support the theory of criminal conspiracy the court saidOffences filed against former Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi on the basis of a sting operation are also not reliable it saidJournalist Ashish Khetan who conducted the sting operation said he kept a relevant portion of the original audio record and micro chip and deleted the remaining the court notedThe recording was deleted from the point he was admitted to hospital where he claimed to be at the time and extra judicial confession cannot be considered evidence when it is not supported by other competent evidence the court saidThere were a total of 86 accused in the case of whom 18 died during the pendency of the trial while one was discharged by the court earlier due to insufficient evidence against himAll the 67 accused acquitted last month were already out on bailThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever