Modi appears before SIT

GANDHINAGAR - Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi Saturday appeared before the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) for questioning over the 2002 communal riots.

Modi reached the SIT office at noon. This is the first time Modi is being interrogated in a riot case.

An official spokesman said Modi’s decision to submit himself for questioning was no setback for the state government. “What setback?” asked spokesman Jai Narayan Vyas.

The SIT issued a notice to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader March 11 seeking his deposition during the week beginning March 21 on the issues raised by Zakia Jaffri, widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffri who was killed in the riots.

Jaffri died along with other residents when a mob set fire to the Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad in the wake of the violence sparked off by a train burning at Godhra that killed 59 Hindu passengers.

Most of those killed in the retaliatory Gujarat violence were Muslims.