Zakia Jafri, the wife of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots, died in Ahmedabad on Saturday, The Indian Express reported. She was 86.

“My mother was visiting my sister’s house in Ahmedabad,” PTI quoted Zakia Jafri’s son Tanveer Jafri as saying. “She completed her daily morning routine and was chatting normally with her family members when she complained of feeling uneasy.”

A doctor was called in, he said, adding that she was declared dead at around 11.30 am.

More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in the communal riots that erupted in Gujarat in February and March of 2002 after a coach of Sabarmati Express carrying Hindu pilgrims from Ayodhya was burnt in Godhra. Fifty-nine persons died in the incident on February 27, 2002.

Ehsan Jafri was among the 69 persons killed when a mob went on a rampage at the Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002.

In 2006, Zakia Jafri submitted a complaint stating that the state police had not registered a complaint against Narendra Modi, the Gujarat chief minister at the time, among others in connection with the riots.

A petition by Zakia Jafri had led the Supreme Court in 2008 to order a re-investigation of nine cases relating to the riots by the Special Investigation Team. This included the Gulberg Society case.

The SIT filed a closure report in 2012.

Zakia Jafri and activist Teesta Setalvad had also challenged the SIT report that had cleared Modi.

However, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition in June 2022, saying that it had been filed “to keep the pot boiling for ulterior design”.

On Saturday, Setalvad described Zakia Jafri as a compassionate leader of human rights. “Her visionary presence will be missed by the nation, family friends & world!” she said on social media.

Also read: Harsh Mander: Whatever happened To Ehsan Jafri on February 28, 2002?