The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team on April 8 began its probe into the 11 most serious incidents that occurred during the anti-Muslim communal carnage in Gujarat in 2002. Over 90 people were butchered and some of them were burnt alive at Naroda Patiya, while five others were chased and killed in the adjacent Naroda Gam on February 28, 2002.
According to a report, team members visited Naroda Gam and looked into the working of the Meghaninagar police station, which has jurisdiction over the areas where two of the most heinous incidents took place. The team also visited the Gulberg Society, also at Meghaninagar, where at least 39 persons including the former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri were burnt alive.
The team members are the former CBI Director R.K. Raghavan (SIT) chief, the former U.P. Director-General of Police C.B. Satpathy and three senior IPS officers of Gujarat cadre – Geeta Johri, Shiva Nand Jha and Ashish Bhatia. The team will make Gandhinagar its headquarters. It will submit its report to the court in three months.