IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
AHMEDABAD, India — Two senior Hindu officials of India’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been summoned for questioning over the massacre of Muslims in the western state of Gujarat eight years ago.
"I have been asked to appear before SIT (Special Investigating Team) tomorrow," former BJP General Secretary Nalin Bhatt told the Press Trust of India Friday, March 12.
Bhatt will be quizzed about the killing of 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat in 2002.
The summoning comes one day after Gujarat’s chief minister Narendra Modi was summoned for questioning over the killings.
"We have called the Gujarat chief minister" for questioning on March 21, SIT chief R.K. Raghavan told Agence France Presse (AFP).
The orders follow one by the Supreme Court to investigators last year to probe a complaint filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of ex-Congress party MP Ehsan Jafri, who was killed on February 28, 2002.
Jafri was hacked to death and burnt by Hindu extremists who stormed the Gulbarg Society, a residential complex housing Muslim families in Ahmedabad, Gujarat's largest city.
In 2002, at least 2000 were hacked or burned to death by Hindu mobs in Gujarat after 59 Hindu pilgrims died in a train fire.
The fire was first blamed on Muslims but a later inquiry concluded it was accidental.
Modi, a prominent BJP member who is often seen as a future prime minister of India, has long been accused by human rights groups of turning a blind eye to the anti-Muslim pogrom.
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The police questioning drew showering praise from families of the Gujarat victims.
"I don't care what happens afterwards but it's good that Modi has been served summons," Zakia Jafri said.
"I have had sleepless nights since the incident. Now let him (Modi) also have some sleepless nights."
Jafri's son, Tanveer, said he hoped his mother's complaint against Modi "will lead to formal charges being filed."
Lawyers and activists, who have campaigned for justice for the Muslim victims, also welcomed the summons.
"(This is) a good first step towards justice,” Mukul Sinha, a lawyer representing the victims, told CNN-IBN news channel.
Teesta Setalvad, a rights activist supporting the Muslim victims, hailed the move as a "long overdue" step that was "not enough."
"I hope this leads to the charging Modi for conspiracy," she told CNN-IBN.
Previous investigations into the killings commissioned by the Gujarat government absolved the state police and administration of collusion or allowing the rioters a free rein.
But last March, Gujarat's Women and Child Welfare Minister Maya Kodnani was arrested on charges of leading a mob that killed more than 100 people during the riots, making her the highest-ranking state official to be detained.
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