Was shaken to core by 2002 riots: Narendra Modi

New Delhi – A day after an Ahmedabad court dismissed a plea in a case relating to the 2002 Gujarat communal riots, the state’s Chief Minister Narendra Modi Friday said he was “shaken to core” by the sectarian clashes.

Modi, in a blog published Friday, called the post-Godhra riots a “crippling blow to an already shattered and hurting Gujarat”.

Published a day after an Ahmedabad court upheld closure of a Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team’s report on the riots, Modi said he wanted to share his “inner thoughts and feelings with the nation at large”.

He said he took over as the 14th chief minister of the state Oct 7, 2001, and was given the responsibility to “soothe and rebuild” after the Jan 26, 2001, devastating Bhuj earthquake.

“… however, the mindless violence of 2002 dealt us another unexpected blow.”

“On one side was the pain of the victims of the earthquake, and on the other, the pain of the victims of the riots,” Modi said in his blog.

“I was shaken to the core. ‘Grief’, ‘sadness’, ‘misery’, ‘pain’, ‘anguish’, ‘agony’ – mere words could not capture the absolute emptiness one felt on witnessing such inhumanity.”

Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, called Thursday’s court verdict a triumph of truth.
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