The Latest: Top stories of the day
1. Indian PhD student Mainak Sarkar has been identified as the shooter on at the University of California, Los Angeles.
2. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has submitted a report to Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on the scandals surrounding state Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse, accused of being involved in illegal land deals and chatting on the telephone with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.
3. The Indian Meteorological Department confirms the monsoon will hit the Kerala coast in the next few days and an above-normal rainfall this season.
4. Spokesman of the external affairs ministry, Vikas Swarup, criticises Pakistan for "needlessly internationalising" the Kashmir issue.
The Big Story: Memories of Gulberg
Fourteen years after a mob tore into Gulberg Society, a Muslim-dominated housing complex in Ahmedabad, and murdered at least 69 people, a special court has delivered its verdict – 24 convicted, 36 acquitted, no conspiracy. Over the past decade and a half, Gulberg Society, along with Best Bakery, Naroda Patiya and Sadarpura, has become emblematic of the violence that howled through Gujarat in 2002. Former Congress legislator Ehsan Jafri was among the people killed and the incident became a keystone of the allegations against then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his government. For these reasons and more, the verdict in the Gulberg Society was a symbolic one. This court ruling is an official record of how public memory dealt with the legacy of 2002.
The many ups and downs of the Gulberg Society case reflect the fraught process of justice for 2002. In 2007, the Gujarat High Court dismissed a petition by Zakia Jafri, wife of Ehsan Jafri, seeking a directive to the police to register a complaint against Modi and 62 others for their alleged involvement in the massacre. But a year later, the Supreme Court asked the Gujarat government to set up a Special Investigation Team to examine 14 cases related to Godhra and its aftermath. Soon afterwards, it permitted the SIT to probe Zakia Jafri's charges against Modi and others.
Over the next few years, the SIT had mixed success as it battled doubts about its credibility. These grew sharper in 2010, when the special prosecutor in the Modi trial resigned, alleging that the trial court judge was biased and the SIT had not coordinated its efforts with him. Two years later, the SIT concluded there was no prosecutable evidence against Modi. Subsequently, the Ahmedabad Metropolitan Court rejected Zakia Jafri's plea to make the SIT report public as well as her petition against the closure report giving a clean chit to Modi.
Given the tremendous odds, it is heartening that 24 people have been convicted, 11 of capital offences. Among those held guilty are heavyweights from the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. But among those acquitted are a BJP councillor and a police officer. Cases of individual guilt have been identified and will be punished. But for the survivors of the massacre, the court verdict offers only partial closure. Eyewitness accounts of the police standing by as the mob savaged and killed, of a last phone call made to Modi, asking for help that never came, of evidence that was destroyed immediately after the massacre – suggestions of a larger administrative culpability – these have gone nowhere.The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day's big story
Aarefa Johari speaks to survivors of the Gulberg Society massacre and activists who fought for justice in the case.
Politicking and policying
1. The Centre has set June 2017 as the deadline to seal the border between Assam and Bangladesh and stem the flow of "illegal Bangladeshi immigrants".
2. In the lead up to the prime minister's visit to the United States, the home ministry has signed an agreement to join the global database known as the Terrorist Screening Centre and maintained by the US.
3. Former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi quits the Congress to float his own party.
Punditry
1. In the Indian Express, Gautam Bhatia points out that the Indian obsession with fairness creams is a sign of deep-seated racism.
2. In the Hindu, Joydeep Biswas argues that the BJP victory in Assam was the result of social engineering that ranged Assamese regionalism, ethnic assertion and Hindutva against the spectre of a Muslim demographic invasion.
3. In the Telegraph, Swapan Dasgupta takes down the "wild optimism" of the Congress-Left combine in West Bengal.
Don't Miss...
Ritika Goel on how right to food has played out in the Rajasthani village of Teekel Purohitan:
The government ration shop is 5 km away from the small, dusty village of Teekel Purohitan in the Phagi tehsil of Rajasthan. The shop is supposed to provide subsidised foodgrain throughout the month. In practice, however, the dealer arbitrarily designates three days a month for disbursing wheat.
Anxious villagers frequently call the dealer to find out when their three lucky days will arrive. After accounting for travel and missing a day at work – either the rural employment guarantee scheme or rare but relatively well-paid other work – the estimated loss is Rs 170-Rs 300 per day.
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