- Saturday, February 01, 2025
She waged a legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court in a bid to hold top political leaders accountable for the large conspiracy for the 2002 Gujarat riots
By: India Weekly
ZAKIA JAFRI, the wife of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots, died on Saturday (01) in Ahmedabad at the age of 86.
Ehsan Jafri was among 69 people who were killed inside Gulbarg Society, a Muslim neighbourhood in Ahmedabad, on February 28, 2002, a day after coaches of the Sabarmati Express train were burnt in Godhra, resulting in the deaths of 59 ‘karsevaks’ returning from Ayodhya.
The incident triggered horrific rioting across the state.
Zakia Jafri hit the national headlines as she waged a legal battle to the Supreme Court in a bid to hold top political leaders accountable for the large conspiracy for the riots post the Godhra train burning episode.
“My mother was visiting my sister’s house in Ahmedabad. She completed her daily morning routine and was normally chatting with her family members when she complained of feeling uneasy. The doctor who was called in declared her dead at around 11:30 am,” her son Tanveer Jafri said.
In a post on X, social activist Teesta Setalvad called Jafri “a compassionate leader of the human rights community.”
“Zakia Appa a compassionate leader of d human rights community passed away just 30 minutes ago! Her visionary presence will be missed by d nation family friends & world! Tanveerbhai, Nishrin, Duraiyaappa, grandkids we are with you! Rest in Power and Peace Zakia appa! #ZakiaJafri,” Setalvad said in her post.
Zakia Jafri, in her 2006 complaint, highlighted “a larger conspiracy” behind the post-Godhra riots through bureaucratic inaction, police complicity and hate speech.
She had demanded a chargesheet against then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and others.
She had accused the Modi administration of delaying the deployment of the Army to contain the riots in view of insufficient police personnel, and had approached Gujarat High Court seeking that her complaint be treated as an FIR.
After the HC rejected her plea, she moved the apex court, which directed the Special Investigation Team (SIT), formed by it in 2008 to look into the riots cases, to also consider her complaint.
After the Supreme Court-appointed SIT filed a closure report in February 2012 and gave a clean chit to Modi and 63 others saying there was “no prosecutable evidence” against them, Jafri filed a protest petition in the metropolitan magistrate court seeking rejection of this report.
When the metropolitan magistrate rejected her protest petition and accepted the SIT’s final report, Zakia Jafri moved Gujarat High Court, which in 2017 dismissed her petition.
She then approached the Supreme Court challenging the SIT’s clean chit to Modi and 63 others.
An SC bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar upheld the decision of the Ahmedabad court to accept the SIT’s closure report, thereby rejecting her protest petition.
In its June 24, 2022 order, the apex court said it found Zakia Jafri’s appeal “devoid of merits”. (PTI)
