Friday, September 26, 2008

SC refuses to stay circulation of Nanavati report. Modi demands apology.

http://broadband.indiatimes.com/toishowvideo/3530948.cms (Video)

Godhra train fire: SC refuses to stay Nanavati report
26 Sep 2008, 1334 hrs IST,PTI


NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the circulation of Justice G T Nanavati report relating to the Godhra carnage in Gujarat. ( Watch )

A petition seeking a stay on the report was mentioned before a Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan which posted its hearing for October 13.

The NGO, Citizen for Justice and Peace, approached the apex court contending that a report by Justice U C Banerjee Committee on the same carnage has been stayed and a similar step should be taken for the Justice Nanavati Commission report which was tabled in the Gujarat assembly on Wednesday.

"There is absolutely no evidence to show that either the Chief Minister or any of the ministers in his council or police officers had played any role in the Godhra incident," said the report of Justice Nanavati, a former Supreme Court judge.

The report, which went into the Sabarmati Express coach burning in February, 2002 that left 58 kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya dead, said it "was a pre-

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Godhra_train_fire_SC_refuses_to_stay_Nanavati_report/articleshow/3530546.cmsplanned conspiracy" hatched at the Aman Guest House in Godhra.

Modi demands apology on Godhra
26 September, 2008 06:32:57
Those who had spread lies to save the killers of the Godhra train carnage should apologise, Chief Minister Narendra Modi said after part of the report of the Nanavati Commission which enquired into the Gujarat violence of 2002 was made public.

Modi said these people were now too ashamed to show their face. If they value truth and justice, they should apologise to the people of Gujarat, he said.

He was speaking on Thursday evening after dedicating the Pandit Deen Dayal Road at the Kankaria area.

The report of the Nanavati panel, which earlier the same day had been placed in the state assembly, said the incident in Godhra in which 59 people, mostly Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists returning from Ayodhya, were killed when the Sabarmati Express caught fire Feb 27, 2002, was a conspiracy.

"The bogus secular forces were shouting hoarse against us. Yet we kept our silence in the hope that the truth will come out one day and the secular mask will be ripped off the faces of these men," Modi said.

He said the formation and empanelling of the judges was done under the direction of the Supreme Court and neither he nor his government had any role to play.

"If you have any evidence against me or my ministers then come out with it," Modi said, adding the Nanavati panel report had proved where the truth lay.

He also said vote bank politics was being played over the Godhra issue.

"When there is an authorised commission inquiring into the riots how can the Congress appoint the UC Banerjee Commission?" Modi asked adding Congress was more concerned with its vote bank politics.

"They wanted 'behn' to be happy,'" Modi said in an apparent reference to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

The UC Banerjee Commission had said the Godhra incident was an accident contrary to the first part of the Nanavati Commission report, tabled in the assembly Thursday, which said it was a pre-planned conspiracy and not an accident.

By December, the Nanavati Commission is likely to submit the second part of its report about its full findings on the post-Godhra riots, which killed over 1,000 people, mostly Muslim, and the role of the government in it.

Some NGOs had opposed the tabling of the report in the state assembly by filing a petition in the Gujarat High Court, but it was rejected. http://howrah.org/india_news/31611.html

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