From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Congress on Monday termed June 24 judgment of the Supreme Court in the 2002 Gujarat riots as “deeply disappointing” as the fundamental questions still remain unanswered and no amount of propaganda by the BJP can ever erase the facts.
Its chief spokesman Jairam Ramesh said the unanswered questions are:
1. What is the Constitutional & moral responsibility of the Chief Minister & State Govt in cases of large-scale communal riots?
2. Is the responsibility in such cases, only ever that of the Collector & Dy. Commissioner of Police and not of political executive?
3. Will the Chief Minister, Cabinet & State Govt never be held accountable, even if a State is thrown into a circle of violence & riots?
Stressing that the Congress stands by its former MP late Ehsan Jafri and his family, Ramesh said there are five questions which will continue to haunt Prime Minister Modi:
● Was Narendra Modi not the Chief Minister of Gujarat when the horrific riots took place in 2002?
● Why was PM Vajpayee so affected by his lack of action that he had to publicly remind him to do his duty, to follow his ‘Rajdharma’?
● Was it not the Supreme Court who called out the conduct of the Modi Government in Gujarat as that of “Modern day Nero’s (who) were looking elsewhere when… innocent children and helpless women were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be saved or protected”?
● Why did sections of the BJP, including now member of the Modi Cabinet, Mrs Smriti Irani protest and call for his dismissal as CM if he was not guilty of any wrongdoing?
● What about all the numerous convictions that have been carried out on the basis of the evidence collected by the SIT relating to the Gujarat riots? Can the BJP claim that those also stand invalidated?
