Godhra absconders: SIT leaves it to God

The SIT report throws light on the ‘‘hard work and consistent efforts’’ it is putting into arresting the accused. Justifying its failure, the report says ‘‘officials involved in investigations have been doing their best to arrest the absconding accused. But sometimes success is not attained despite efforts, and that’s happening in this case.’’

After the report was submitted and these justifications provided, Judge Gokani questioned prosecution whether the IO was obliging the system by making efforts at arresting the accused. Sources in state Legal Department said the court has since then directed prosecution to report justifications given by Parmar for his failure to the supervising officer of the case, Additional DGP (CID, Crime) Kuldeep Sharma. Interestingly, the May 10 report was submitted to the court after it directed Parmar as he had not submitted it after March 31. While both the reports — of March 31 and May 10 — name 46 accused as absconding, one of them was arrested earlier this week.

In his March 31 report, Parmar informed the court about various efforts made by him and his team to arrest the absconding accused and instances of violent protests and attacks the team had to face while going about this job.

In his May 10 report, Parmar justifies the SIT’s failure to nab the absconders by arguing that most of them belong to the Ghanchi community, which is very close knit. It argues that members of this community support the accused and help them in evading arrest. When Parmar was asked about the justifications, especially attributing SIT’s failure to God, in his report, he said, ‘‘I do not remember what I have written in the report. How can I remember after all these days?’’