Ahmedabad, April 19
The CBI today filed a chargesheet against 20 persons in the Gujarat riots case of Bilkis Yakub, who was gangraped and her relatives were massacred allegedly by rioters, including district president of the BJP.The chargesheet was filed in the designated court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (Ahmedabad, Rural) S. M. Padhya against the 20, which included six policemen and two government doctors, CBI sources said.
The case was handed over to the CBI on the direction of the Supreme Court in December last year, after which the agency registered the case in January and arrested 12 persons, including Jaswant Nai, Govind Nai and Naresh Moriya.
According to the chargesheet, Bilkis Yakub and her 17 relatives, including her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, were fleeing from their residence when they were attacked by a mob allegedly led by the Nais around Panivela in March, 2002. The riots had started after the burning of a bogie of a train at Godhra.
Besides the Nais and Maurya, the CBI named Pradeep Maurya, Lal Vakil, Baku Bhai, Kesar Bhai, Raju Soni, Ramesh Chandana (PS to the local BJP MLA), Sailesh Bhat (Dhaod district president of the BJP), Nitesh Bhat and Lala, all of whom are in judicial custody.
The chargesheeted police officials are a Deputy Superintendent of Police, two inspectors (including one retired) and a head constable. They have not been arrested by the CBI so far. It also named Sub-Inspector I. A. Syed and head constable Narpatsinh Patel (already arrested).
The two doctors named by the CBI are Arun Kumar and Sangeet Prasad, who, the agency alleged, had not conducted their professional duties in tradition with the noble profession besides suppressing the facts, the sources said.
The 20 accused have been booked under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 376-E (raping a pregnant woman), 376-G (gangrape) and others of the IPC relating to the destruction and suppression of evidence and falsifying records.
The chargesheet also mentioned the gory murder of Bilkis’s daughter allegedly by Sailesh Bhatt besides highlighting the involvement of police officials in the criminal conspiracy that included their attempts to hush up the case.
During investigations, the CBI found that several packets of salt were buried with the bodies of the victims, whose post-mortem was conducted by the Gujarat police.
The CBI claimed to have a witness who told the investigators that he had been directed by the local police to get 60 kg of salt to be buried along with the bodies to ensure early decomposition. —
PTI
