Gujarat EDN
TOI 11SEP2012
Naroda Gam: 60 new witnesses to be examined
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Ahmedabad: The special court hearing the Naroda Gam case has accepted the prosecution’s plea to permit it to examine 60 new witnesses, including those concerned with the 2007 sting operation. Till date, more than 220 witnesses have been examined in the case.
Special prosecutors – Suresh Shah and Gaurang Vyas, wanted to examine several panch witnesses, besides important witnesses to the sting operation that came on record in form of electronic evidence at a later stage.
Designated judge S H Vora has kept September 26 for deposition of a CBI officer, who was involved in verification of the Tehelka tapes that actually nailed Babu Bajrangi, Prakash Rathod and Suresh Langado,
along with former minister Maya Kodanani in the Naroda Patia case.
This court presided over by principal sessions judge Vora was reluctant to take the sting operation as evidence on record, and it had rejected the plea filed by the Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) in this regard. The same pleas by the SIT were accepted by the Gulbarg and Naroda Patia courts. Finally, the Gujarat high court directed the trial court to take the electronic evidence on record.
The trial court also rejected the SIT’s plea to summon the material of sting operation, which is lying in the custody of the court that hears the Gulbarg Society massacre case. The SIT once again moved the HC, which has ordered the Gulbarg society court to hand over the muddamal to the Naroda Gam court by September 24, advocate Vyas said.
Eleven persons were killed at Naroda Gam on February 28, 2002. This case was probed by the city police until the SC handed it over to the SIT. The new probe agency nabbed Kodanani and senior VHP leader Jaideep Patel in 2009. In all, 84 persons were arrested and are being prosecuted in this case.
