The Special Investigation Team (SIT) is all set to question him and 61 others who have been ordered to be probed by the Supreme Court for their alleged complicity in the Gujarat riots. SIT would not submit a report to SC without examining each and every one of the 62 political leaders, bureaucrats and police officers covered by the April 27 order, including the Gujarat chief minister. Though SC set a three-month deadline for the report, given the magnitude of its task, SIT may take longer than that to get around to questioning Modi. Headed by former CBI director R K Raghavan, SIT is most likely to seek an extension from SC before the deadline expires on July 26.
In a related development, SIT has cited journalist Ashish Khetan of Tehelka as a prosecution witness in at least three Gujarat riot cases after verifying some of the evidence contained in the sting that he had conducted on political complicity for the magazine. SIT might cite Khetan as a prosecution witness against him too if it is able to verify any of the sting evidence concerning him. Apparently, it was only after such due diligence that SIT named Khetan as a prosecution witness in the high-profile cases related to Gulbarg Society, Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaon.