A Gujarat court maintained on Thursday the result of an investigation that cleared state chief minister Narendra Modi of involvement in riots in 2002, giving the opposition politician an improve as he runs for prime minister. Modi, a leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has used the report to defend himself in the past, saying he was "given a carefully clean chit" and insisting he did all he could to stop the violence. The riots exploded in February 2002 after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims were torched, prompting a gesture of reprisal attacks against the state's minority Muslims. At least 1,000 people were killed, most of them Muslims, in some of India's worst sacred bloodshed since 1947.
