Trouble ahead for Narendra Modi

The Nanavati Commission probing the 2002 riots in Gujarat Saturday asked the staff of Chief Minister Narendra Modi to provide details of their phone conversations with ministers during the riots that killed over 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

Mukul Sinha, advocate for the NGO Janshangharsh Manch, said: "The commission has sought details of telephone conversations between the chief minister's staff and other ministers, and Jaideep Patel," then a leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, affiliated to the state's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The role of the Narendra Modi-led government has been under the scanner, with many victims and rights groups alleging complicity of its ministers in the riots. But despite the plea of the Manch, the commission had still not issued any summons to Modi or his staff to appear before it, Sinha told  a TV news channel.