The BJP president Amit Shah has done his duty as a citizen by answering a summons and appearing in the special court and deposing in the Naroda Gam massacre case in which 11 Muslims were killed. He was a defence witness for one of the prime accused in former minister Maya Kodnani. However, his testimony may not have really backed up her alibi as there was a considerable gap in the times stated in which Mr Shah said he had seen her in the state Assembly and later in the hospital, a couple of hours apart, on the day after the Godhra massacre in which 59 karsevaks were burnt alive.
Mr Shah’s BJP colleague has already been convicted in the Naroda Patiya case pertaining to the Gujarat riots of 2002 and is out of jail on health grounds. Whether Mr Shah’s testimony bears out her alibi or not, her party president has shown solidarity for what it is worth in the run-up to the Gujarat polls next year.
The Gujarat riots cases, however, do bring up the painful memories of one of two worst possible incidents in the history of free India, the other being the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. It is a comment on the speed of our justice delivery system that many of the 2002 cases are being fast-tracked only now after the Supreme Court set a 4-month deadline. But then there has been no closure of 1984 either as a SIT to reinvestigate serious criminal cases relating to the riots that claimed 2,733 lives in Delhi alone was still doing some work 33 years after the event. It might suffice to say that the wheels of justice grind on ever so slowly in India.
