Modi questioned by SIT for over 5 hours
PTI
GANDHINAGAR, MARCH 27
For the first time since the riots in Gujarat eight years ago, State Chief Minister Narendra Modi today subjected himself to questioning by the Supreme Court-appointed SIT (Special Investigation Team) in two sessions, including one lasting for over five hours.
The controversial Bharatiya Janata Party leader, who faces allegations of omission and commission with regard to the mob attack on a housing society in which a former Congress member of parliament Ehsan Jafri and 68 others were killed, drove to the SIT office in the heart of Gandhinagar where he was questioned by a team of officers headed by A K Malhotra, a former Central Bureau of Investigation official..
After a marathon session lasting over five hours from 12 noon to a little past 5 pm, Modi left the SIT office telling reporters that he would come back in the evening.
Late night, Modi returned to the SIT office for further questioning because he was keen that the entire exercise be completed today itself.
Though there was no official word on the questioning, Modi is said to have replied to 62 of the 68 questions put to him in the first session.
Modi claimed he had anwsered all questions put by SIT and that he would prefer questioning to end in one day.
“Vistaar se batcheet ki (we spoke in detail),” he said adding “under the Indian Constitution, law is supreme. As a common man, CM, I am bound by the Indian Constitution and law. No one can be above the law.”
This was the first time that Modi was probed since the carnage eight years back.
After the first round of questioning, a smiling Modi emerged from the SIT office at the old secretariat building and told mediapersons that “I am taking a break from questioning.”
SIT Chief R K Raghavan was not present in his office when Modi appeared in the first session in response to the panel’s summons.
Modi became the first chief minister of any state to be questioned in a criminal complaint of mass murder after he and his administration were accused of aiding and abetting riots in one area in Ahmedabad.
Ending the suspense as to where and when he would appear after he was summoned for questioning in connection with a complaint of Zakia Jafry, widow of Eshan Jafri, Modi reached the SIT office at around noon.
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Hoping for justice now: Zakia
The law is not so blind that it will not provide me justice. Definitely I will get justice,” Zakia Jafri, on whose complaint Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been summoned by the SIT today said.
“Whatever he will speak today, he will speak the truth. The chief minister of such a big state of Gujarat should not lie. This is for the first time in the last eight years that he has been summoned and he will have to speak some part of the truth,” she added. – (PTI)
