Gujarat riots: SIT chief RK Raghavan assures cooperation with trial court

RK Raghavan, the chief of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing some of the 2002 riots cases in Gujarat, today said his team will do its "utmost" to assist the trial court in arriving at the truth.

"The SIT will give our utmost assistance to cooperate with the trial court in arriving at the truth," said Raghavan, a former CBI director.

Raghavan was responding to questions by the media on the apex court direction to SIT to submit its final report on the riots cases before the magistrate concerned in Ahmedabad.

The trial court was asked by the Supreme Court to decide whether to proceed against Modi and 63 others, which includes senior government officials for alleged inaction in containing the riots.

He declined to comment on allegations that the SIT had gone soft on Modi in its report submitted to Supreme Court.

However, he said his officers have done a good job after a lot of hard work.

Raghavan said he will to have a look at the Supreme Court order before he can give any instructions to the SIT members.

The apex court had earlier handed over the task of probing the riots cases to SIT which submitted its report in the court.

After the SIT filed its probe report in a sealed cover, the court had also asked senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who is assisting it as amicus curie, to analyse the SIT probe findings and file a confidential report on it.

Ramachandran subsequently had submitted his report to the court, which passed the order after going through the reports by SIT and Ramachandran and referred the case back to the Ahmedabad magistrate concerned to decide the further course of action in the case.