14 riots cases: SC gives Gujarat 10 days to set up SIT

New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Wednesday set a 10-day deadline for the Gujarat government to constitute a five-member special investigation team (SIT) headed by former CBI chief R K Raghavan to "inquire and investigate" 14 cases related to post-Godhra violence in 2002.
The cases include the one in which Mohd Rafudan Ansari and another person are named in FIR No 09/2002 as the accused who torched the Sabarmati Express at Godhra, leaving 59 dead.
The SIT "shall inquire, investigate/further investigate into these cases," a bench headed by Justice Arijit Pasayat said while directing it to submit its report in a sealed cover within three months.
The court's directives follow a bunch of petitions filed by the National Human Rights Commission, individuals and NGOs which had sought transfer of the trial of the riots' cases outside Gujarat and further investigation or re-investigation by the CBI.
The petitions were filed after several witnesses turned hostile amidst allegations of threat, coercion and inducement to derail the investigation.
The SIT would be free to evolve its own modalities for the purpose of carrying out investigations into the cases, the apex court said.
Besides Raghavan, the team would comprise former DG of UP Police C D Satpathy and three IPS officers from Gujarat -- Geeta Johri, Shivanand Jha and Ashish Bhatia. Johri will be the SIT convener.
Johri headed investigations into the fake encounter killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bi in 2005 and was at the centre of a controversy after being removed from the probe team allegedly at the behest chief minister Narender Modi.
THE HINDU; Wednesday, March 26, 2008