In first such case, a senior police officer K.G.Erda was arrested on 8th Feb’09 by Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court in March’2008.
The SIT has already filed a charge sheet of over 2000 pages, in the metropolitan court in Ahmedabad, in the Gulbarg case, naming 14 accused and 21 absconders.
Erda was on duty when 39 people were massacred in Gulbarg Society during Gujarat riots of 2002 when more than 1000 members of minority community were murdered at various places in Gujarat on the alibi of burning of 59 ‘Ramsevaks’ in a train in Godhra.
According to SIT chief R.K.Raghaban, Erda was posted at Valsad at the time of his arrest and that he has been arrested on charges of inaction on duty amounting to abetment of crime and thereafter tampering with the evidence of the carnage. Raghavan also refused to rule out further arrests in this connection.
Erda was posted at Meghaninagar Police Station when the riots broke out. He failed to act when Congress ex-MP Ehsaan Jaffri made frantic calls from his Gulbarg Society Complex residence to protect them from a Hindu mob that attacked the society complex ultimately resulting in murder of 39 members of minority community including Jaffri.
A retired Additional Director General of Police, M.K.Tandon, have been quizzed in the case. Tandon is said to have visited the Gulbarg society during the mob attack, in the capacity of Joint Commissioner of Police in Ahmedabad.
K.K. Mysorewala, a deputy superintendent of police along with two more senior officers have been questioned in the case. Mysorewala was an inspector in Naroda when rioters killed 89 Muslims in Naroda Patia.
Several local BJP and VHP leaders including BJP minister Maya Kodnani were declared absconders in the cases. Kodnani was later granted anticipatory bail in the Naroda Patia and Naroda Gam riot cases.