The Supreme Court has commenced the final
hearing on a petition by Zakia Ahsan Jafri's plea challenging the SIT report
giving clean chit to the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other
high functionaries in the Gujarat riots of 2002.
Jafri told the SC that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) ignored a mass of evidence and drew conclusions without any investigation in the 2002 Gujarat riots and did not record statements, seize phones, check how bombs were manufactured and straightaway filed closure reports.
For nearly 20 years, Zakia Jafri has been continuing her battle for justice.
Ehsan Jafri was among the 68 people killed at the Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002 -- a day after the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express was burnt at Godhra, killing 59 people and triggering riots in Gujarat.
A Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar said the matter would be listed tomorrow, November 11.
Sibal told a bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar that communal violence is a "fertile ground" for future revenge and he too had lost his maternal grandparents in Pakistan.
"Communal violence is like lava erupting from a volcano. It is institutionalized violence. Wherever that lava touches, it scars the earth. It is a fertile ground for future revenge," he told the bench, also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar.
"I lost my maternal parents to it in Pakistan," a visibly emotional Sibal told the bench, which was hearing Jafri's plea.
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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 high court in its October 2017 order had said the SIT probe was monitored by the Supreme Court.
However, it partly allowed Zakia Jafri's petition as far as its demand for a further investigation was concerned.