Riot Panel waiting for Modi to appear

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has so far not appeared before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) enquiring into the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The SIT has given Modi a week starting from Sunday to come and answer questions in a case filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of late Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who along with 68 others were killed in the Gulbarg Society massacre of February 28, 2002.

The summons though does not make it mandatory for Modi to make an appearance before the SIT team headed by RK Raghavan. Narendra Modi is consulting his top legal advisors whether he should appear or not before the panel.

No one from the Modi government is willing to comment on if and when the Chief Minister will appear before the SIT.

"The summon has not been issued under section 160 of the CrPC. A notice under no provision of CrPC doesn't make it mandatory for the Chief Minister to appear or even if he appears speak the truth. He is not legally binded to do so," said Mukul Sinha, counsel for riot victims.

The SIT says Modi is not yet an accused in any of the cases, hence it cannot apply legal provisions just yet.

Modi himself realises, all too well, that if he chooses to appear before the SIT he will have to face uncomfortable questions, particularly those raised by former Intelligence Chief R B Sreekumar.

Now retired, Sreekumar had submitted his official register in which he had maintained verbal instructions given by Modi's office both to the Nanavati Commission and now to the SIT.

Sreekumar alleges:

    * He was asked to tap the phone of former Chief Minister Shankarsinh Waghela
    * Desist from collecting Intelligence of the Sangh Parivar's activities
    * Also not to give the Central Election Commission a correct assessment on the communal situation in Gujarat