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Gujarat riots: Kapil Sibal tells SC message must be sent it's unacceptable
Sibal is arguing on behalf of Zakia Jafri who has challenged a clean chit to 64 people, including PM Narendra Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat chief minister during the 2002 riots.
Senior advocate and Congress leader Kapil Sibal said on Wednesday that communal violence was like a lava erupting from a volcano that scared the ground it touched.
Arguing on behalf of Zakia Jafri who has challenged a clean chit by the special investigating team (SIT) to 64 people, including Prime Minister Narendra Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat chief minister during the 2002 riots, Sibal told the Supreme Court that said a message must be sent to the world that this was "unacceptable" and "cannot be tolerated".
According to a PTI report, he further said communal violence was a "fertile ground" for future revenge and he had lost his maternal grandparents in Pakistan in a similar way.
"Communal violence is like lava erupting from a volcano. It is institutionalised violence. Wherever that lava touches, it scars the earth. It is a fertile ground for future revenge," he told the bench, headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar.
"I lost my maternal parents to it in Pakistan," a visibly emotional Sibal told the bench, also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar.
The senior advocate said he was not accusing A or B, but this was a "historic matter" because the choice was between ensuring that rule of law will prevail or letting people run amok.
Jafri is the wife of slain Congress leader Ehsan Jafri, who was killed at Gulberg society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002, during the riots.
The former MP was among the 68 people killed in the violence, a day after a coach of the Sabarmati Express was burnt at Godhra killing 59 people and triggering riots in Gujarat.
On October 26, the apex court had said it would like to peruse the closure report of the SIT giving the clean chit to 64 individuals and the justification given by the magisterial court while accepting it. The argument in the matter was underway in the top court.
Sibal had earlier said Jafri's complaint was about “a larger conspiracy where there was bureaucratic inaction, police complicity, hate speeches and unleashing of violence".
On February 8, 2012, the SIT had filed a closure report giving a clean chit to Modi and 63 others, including senior government officials, saying there was "no prosecutable evidence" against them.
Zakia Jafri had filed a petition in the apex court in 2018 challenging the Gujarat high court's October 5, 2017, order rejecting her plea against the decision of the SIT.
The plea also stated that after the SIT gave a clean chit in its closure report before a trial judge, she filed a protest petition which was dismissed by the magistrate without considering its "substantiated merits".
(With inputs from agencies)
