The lawyer of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) which probed Zakia Jafri's complaint regarding 2002 Gujarat riots today claimed that former IPS officer R B Sreekumar and serving officer Rahul Sharma were part of "a conspiracy" that fabricated evidence.
Both Sreekumar and Sharma have, in the past, contradicted Gujarat government's version of events during the riots.
"Sharma was a part of a conspiracy with Sreekumar for fabricating evidence (against Narendra Modi government)," SIT lawyer R S Jamuar argued before metropolitan magistrate B J Ganatra.
"Argument put forward by lawyers of Zakia Jafri is that Sreekumar was tutored by G C Murmu, a government official, about the statement he was supposed to give before the Justice Nanavati Commission," he said.
"However, R B Sreekumar was handed over an electronic device by Rahul Sharma to record the conversation of the meeting between him and Murmu and produce it before the Commission probing the post-Godhra riots," he said.
"This pinpoints a larger conspiracy between Sreekumar and Sharma to fabricate evidence," the lawyer said, adding that the state government had the right to inform (government) witnesses about the statements they were supposed to give before the Nanavati Commission.
He was replying to issues raised by lawyers of Jafri, whose husband and former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed during the riots. Jafri has filed a petition challenging SIT's clean chit to Modi and others over their alleged roles in facilitating riots.
Her lawyers had claimed the SIT (constituted by the Supreme Court) failed to investigate the aspect of larger conspiracy hatched by the chief minister and others.
