New Delhi, June 28 (Representative) The Congress on Monday said the Supreme Court judgment in the Zakia Jafri case is deeply disappointing.Congress Media department head Jairam Ramesh said in a statement despite the judgment dated June 24, 2022, some fundamental questions still remain unanswered. The Supreme Court ruling upholding the SIT’s clean chit to the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and 63 others in the 2002 communal riots, and asked whether Modi and the state government will ever be held accountable. “What is the Constitutional and moral responsibility of the Chief Minister and state government in cases of large-scale communal riots? Is the responsibility in such cases, only ever that of the Collector and Dy. Commissioner of Police and not of political executive?” Ramesh asked.” Will the Chief Minister, Cabinet and State government never be held accountable, even if a State is thrown into a circle of violence and riots?” “We stand by our colleague, the late Ehsan Jafri and his family in this hour. What happened to him in a most tragic manner was the result of a fundamental lapse on the part of the state government,” he said. “Furthermore, while the Supreme Court has pronounced its judgment, there are five questions that will continue to haunt the Prime Minister – Was Shri Narendra Modi not the Chief Minister of Gujarat when the horrific riots took place in 2002?” he said.”Why was PM Vajpayee so affected by his lack of action that he had to publicly remind him to do his duty, to follow his ‘Rajdharma’?
Was it not the Supreme Court who called out the conduct of the Modi Government in Gujarat as that of “Modern day Nero’s (who) were looking elsewhere when… innocent children and helpless women were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be saved or protected”?” said Ramesh.”Why did sections of the BJP, including now member of the Modi Cabinet, Smt. Smriti Irani protest and call for his dismissal as CM if he was not guilty of any wrongdoing?” he added.He also questioned about the status of numerous convictions that have been carried out on the basis of the evidence collected by the SIT relating to the Gujarat riots.”Can the BJP claim that those also stand invalidated?” he asked.”No amount of propaganda by the BJP can ever erase these facts,” he said.Ehsan Jafri, a former Congress MP, was among the 68 people killed at Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Society during the violence on February 28, 2002, a day after the Godhra train burning that claimed 59 lives.Supreme Court on Friday upheld the SIT’s clean chit to PM Modi and 63 others in the 2002 communal riots in the state. The judgment said aying there is no “title of material” to show the violence after the Godhra train carnage was “pre-planned” owing to the criminal conspiracy allegedly hatched at the “highest level” in the state.