Former Gujarat minister Jhadapia grilled fifth time

GANDHINAGAR - Gujarat’s former minister of state for home Gordhan Jhadapia was Friday grilled by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) for the fifth time on his role during the 2002 communal riots.

Jhadaphia’s name figures as one of the 63 accused, including Chief Minister Narendra Modi, in the petition filed by Zakia Jafri, the wife of the former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was among the 69 killed in the Gulberg Society massacre in Ahmedabad.

He was also summoned by the Nanavati-Mehta Commission probing the Godhra train carnage and the communal riots that followed but the move has been challenged in the Gujarat High Court by the Jan Sangharsh Manch, the organisation fighting for the cause of riot victims.

Jhadapia, who was in the ministry during the riots, has since broken away from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the head of a rebel group opposed to the chief minister to form his own Mahagujarat Janata Party (MJP).