On Wednesday, the Gujarat government has tabled the final part of the Justice Nanavati-Mehta Commission report on the 2002 riots in the Assembly. Then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others have been given clean chit in post-Godhara riots.
For those unaware, Nanavati Commission was formed to investigate the Godhra carnage and then the riots in the state. The first part of this report of this commission was tabled in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly on 25 September 2009.
The Nanavati-Mehta Commission submitted its last report on November 18, 2014, to the then Chief Minister Anandiben Patel. However, since then this report is with the state government. Now five years later this report has been tabled in the Legislative Assembly.
Former IPS officer RB Srikumar appealed to the High Court to direct the state government to make the report public. Sreekumar has been the former Director-General of Police of Gujarat. The state government had told the Gujarat High Court that it would submit the report in the next assembly session.
During the 2002 riots, the Gujarat police were accused of laxity in this case. Three days of violence killed 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus. At the same time, 223 people went missing.
Narendra Modi, the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, was accused of not taking necessary action to stop the rioters. He ordered not to take action against police rioters. However, at that time the UPA government at the Center had formed an SIT to investigate the riots which gave a clean chit to Narendra Modi in his report.
