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Authentication of CDs sought in Gulberg Society case

AHMEDABAD: Advocates of victims and witnesses of the Gulberg Society massacre case have filed an application before the special fast track court here seeking authentication of compact discs containing mobile phone call details of some top political leaders and police officials during the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. The application will come up for hearing on April 5.

The applicants also sought an order from the court to the Supreme Court-appointed SIT probing major riot cases in the State, to rectify the “loopholes” in evidence presented by it before the fast track court holding trial of the Gulberg Society massacre case.

According to legal sources, authentication of the CDs carrying call details was necessary under the Evidence Act. The CDs were copies of the two CDs prepared by the then deputy police commissioner, Ahmedabad crime branch, Rahul Sharma, and were presented before the G.T. Nanavati-Akshay Mehta judicial inquiry commission probing the Godhra train carnage and the post-Godhra communal riots.

Citizens for Justice and Peace general secretary Teesta Setalvad, who is supporting the cause of the Gujarat riot victims in the courts, alleged that the SIT by deliberately being lax in tying up the evidence” could provide an escape route to the perpetrators of the crimes.

The application noted that the SIT did not probe the alleged destruction of phone call records of the former Congress MP, Ehsan Jaffrey, who was among those killed in the Gulberg Society massacre, or recorded the statements of the policemen on duty there on that fateful day or pinned the responsibility for the destruction of the records on anyone.

Similarly, the phone call records of the then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner, P.C. Pande, who allegedly received about 15 calls from the Chief Minister's Office between 12 noon and 3 p.m., the time when Gulberg Society and Naroda-Patiya areas were under attack, had been left un-investigated by the SIT. The investigating agency also did not bother to record the statements of either Mr. Pande or anyone in the CMO in this connection, the application pointed out.

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