Report on Modi cleared by SIT 'most heartening', says Advani

NEW DELHI: Senior BJP leader L K Advani today described as "most heartening" reports that the Supreme Court appointed SIT has not found any substantial evidence against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the post- Godhra riots.

Putting up a strong defence of the Gujarat Chief Minister, Advani said in his 60 years of political life he has not known any of his colleague "so consistently, so viciously maligned by opponents as Narendra Modi".

Writing in his blog, the former Deputy Prime Minister said people, who are part of the "demonising campaign" against Modi, have based their attack on one allegation that Modi did not stop the riots in Gujarat after the Godhra carnage.

"The most heartening news I have read in a long, long time" is a report that Special Investigation Team clears Modi of willfully allowing post-Godhra riots, Advani said.

"The country is eagerly awaiting the full text of the SIT report to the Supreme Court," he said.

According to a media report, the SIT has cleared Modi of the charge that he failed to discharge his constitutional duty to intervene swiftly and stop the communal riots.

When the "calumny campaign" against Modi was at its peak, Modi was receiving kudos from within India and abroad for making Gujarat a role mode state for the country "so far as good and honest governance is concerned."

Advani also said the allegation against Modi was that after the brutal attack at Godhra on a train returning from Ayodhya in which 58 kar sewaks were burned to death and riots broke out in some parts of Gujarat, Modi deliberately allowed the rioters to run rampage.

He also recalled that the Supreme Court appointed the SIT headed by former CBI director R K Raghavan to investigate a petition filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of former Congress MP Ahsan Jafri, that Modi failed to stop riots.

"The Raghavan team investigated the allegations for nearly twenty months. In the course of their investigations the SIT interrogated Narendra Modi personally, and early last week submitted its report to the apex court," Advani noted.