Pandya's widow appointed child welfare panel chief by govt

The Gujarat government on Wednesday appointed Jagruti Pandya, widow of former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya, assassinated in 2003, as the chairperson of the state commission for protection of child rights for a three-year term.

While state Bharatiya Janata Party president R C Faldu informed mediapersons of her appointment in Gandhinagar, when contacted, Pandya refused to speak on the iasue.

 “I shall speak on the issue once I recieve the official letter. I have not recieved any official communique so far,” she said.

Haren Pandya, who was the state home minister prior to the 2002 communal violence, was assassinated in 2003 outside a public park in Ahmedabad while he had gone for his morning walk.

Haren Pandya had fallen from grace of the then chief minister Narendra Modi, after he deposed before the independent tribunal headed by justice V R Krishna Iyer probing 2002 riots in Gujarat. Haren had also refused to vacate his Ellis Bridge seat in the state Assembly for Modi to contest the election after becoming the chief minister. Pandya’s appointment by the Anandiben Patel government now assumes significance because she had been repeatedly demanding a probe into the assassination of her husband by the Central Bureau of Investigation, not by the Gujarat Police, during the tenure of the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.