Mallika Sarabhai disagrees with court's clean chit to Narendra Modi

AHMEDABAD: Noted social activist and danseuse Mallika Sarabhai today said she does not agree with the metropolitan court's verdict giving clean chit to Narendra Modi and 62 others in the 2002 Gujarat riots, while rejecting Zakia Jafri's protest petition.

"I do not agree with the judgment," Sarabhai told PTI. In a huge relief to Narendra Modi ahead of the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, the Metropolitan Magistrate B J Ganatra here yesterday accepted the SIT's closure report giving clean chit to him in the 2002 Gujarat riots while rejecting the protest petition, the only lawsuit accusing the BJP's prime ministerial nominee of complicity in the riots.

The verdict on the protest petition filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was among the 68 people killed in the Gulbarg society massacre, is expected to give a major political boost to BJP and Modi.

Mukul Sinha, the convener of Jan Sangharsh Manch (JSM), a civil society organisation fighting for the riots and encounter victims in the state, said that there was strong evidence against Modi, which points towards criminal negligence, if not direct involvement in the riots.

"There is sufficient evidence which exposes Modi's complicity and criminal negligence on his part, if not his direct involvement," Sinha told PTI.

He alleged that only a preliminary inquiry had been conducted in the Gulbarg society massacre case and an FIR had not been lodged.

He said that the case should have been probed independently by any other agency, instead of the SIT.

Stating that the clean chit does not absolve Modi of the charges levelled against him, Sinha said the magistrate was completely wrong not looking at the evidences on record.