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Journalism of Courage
The Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) here suffered a major setback on Friday when all 13 persons, accused of conspiring to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi after the 2002 riots, were discharged by a trial court. The court held that ‘‘there was no prima facie case to frame charges against the accused.’’ However, the order has been stayed till January 9 to allow the state government to file an appeal in the high court.
Additional Sessions Judge B.N. Jani ordered the stay after the government filed a petition seeking interim relief to move an appeal in the high court against discharge of the accused. In its application, the government voiced apprehension that if the accused are discharged they may not be available for trial in case the high court rejects the trial court’s order.
The accused were discharged after advocate B.M. Gupta and a panel of other lawyers argued that the case rested only on confessional statements.
The DCB arrested Jaish-e-Mohammad operative Samirkhan Sarfarazkhan Pathan on September 27, 2002, and claimed to have busted a conspiracy to kill Modi in the wake of the post-Godhra riots. The plan was allegedly hatched by JeM and ISI.
In its chargesheet filed on December 27, 2002, the DCB alleged that the accused they had helped prime conspirator Samirkhan procure fake passports and other documents to sneak into Pakistan for terrorist training.
The chargesheet claimed that Samirkhan, who had been on the run since he allegedly killed a policeman in 1996, had returned to Ahmedabad for the specific ‘task’ of eliminating Modi. However,no weapon or explosive was recovered from him during or after his arrest. Samirkhan was killed in an ‘‘encounter’’ by DCB officials on the night of October 23, 2002. Two others accused to have been part of the conspiracy were released on bail by the high court last year.
The 13 accused had been booked for waging war against the country, collecting arms for the war, criminal conspiracy and other provisions of the IPC.
