Rules apart in Gujarat

Is there one rule for those accused in the Godhra carnage and those wanted for the riots that followed? Certainly looks like it.Within a mon...

Is there one rule for those accused in the Godhra carnage and those wanted for the riots that followed? Certainly looks like it.

Within a month of filing chargesheets in the Godhra carnage case, the state government had moved court seeking that properties of the 33 accused — who had been declared absconders as they had not presented themselves before the police — be attached.

	Whodunit? BJP quizzes Pandya
Gandhinagar: Chief Minister Narendra Modi is learnt to have prevailed upon Gujarat BJP chief Rajendrasinh Rana to seek a clarification from Minister of State for Revenue Haren Pandya on whether he had deposed before a panel of retired judges that Modi had instructed senior IAS and IPS officials at a meeting on February 27 ‘‘to let people avenge the Godhra carnage’’. The state BJP chief issued the letter to Pandya on Friday. ‘‘I have not issued him a show-cause notice, I have only sought his explanation whether he had appeared before the commission as reported by an English newsweekly in June,’’ Rana said. A retired judge of Bombay High Court, Hosbet Suresh, was quoted as saying that a Minister had made such a statement before the panel, but the name could not disclosed. Rana was sullen when he was asked why no time frame had been set for the Minister to reply. Pandya confirmed he had received the letter but refused to divulge its contents. He also refused to say whether he had deposed before the commission. Story continues below this ad

But no such move has been initiated in the case of those accused in the Naroda-Patiya and Gulbarg Society cases, which occurred a day after Godhra and where a total of 122 people were burnt alive and 68 are missing and presumed dead. The two cases are being probed by the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB).

On being asked why the process of attaching properties had not been initiated in the Naroda-Patiya and Gulbarg cases, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) P.P. Pandey evaded a direct answer.

‘‘Talk to me as a senior police officer and stop asking me questions about Naroda-Patiya,’’ he said. The investigating officer in the case, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) S.S. Chudasama, said that ‘‘the process to get their properties attached is underway’’, but was not forthcoming on the details.

The chargesheet in the Godhra case had been filed on May 22, after which the government had asked the court to issue a notification under Section 70 of the CrPC asking the 33 absconding accused to present themselves before the police within a month.

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On July 16, it told the court that as the accused had not presented themselves till July 12, it should be allowed to attach their moveable and immoveable property.

In the Naroda-Patiya and Gulbarg cases, the Crime Branch had named 49 and 50 people as accused, respectively, in interim chargesheets filed in the first week of June.

Nine of the Naroda-Patiya accused are yet to be arrested while eight are absconding in the Gulbarg Society case. Among those absconding in the Naroda-Patiya case is Raju Rohera, who is named in the FIR as one of the five leading the mob. The others include Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi, VHP leader P.J. Rajput and BJP worker Kishan Korani.

Crime Branch sources revealed that even the moveable and immoveable properties of the accused are yet to be enlisted. Neither has the Crime Branch moved the court to direct the absconding accused to present themselves within a month.

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‘‘Till a notification is issued by the court and the one-month limit expires, we can’t attach properties of the accused,’’ points out a Crime Branch official.

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