NEW DELHI: The controversial chief minister of India’s Gujarat state on Monday suffered a setback when an advisor to the Supreme Court said the politician can be prosecuted over deadly anti-Muslim riots.

The Supreme Court-appointed advisor or amicus curiae said in a report that Modi should be prosecuted under the Indian penal code for “promoting enmity”among different religious groups during the 2002 riots.

The report was a blow to Modi, a prominent member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and seen as a potential candidate to be India's prime minister in the 2014 general elections.

The findings by Raju Ramachandran were in sharp contrast to the conclusions last month of a special investigation team appointed by the Supreme Court which cleared Modi of any responsibility for the bloodshed.

Modi has been accused by rights groups of having turned a blind eye to the anti-Muslim violence that swept the state in 2002 claiming as many as 2,000 lives, and of failing to bring to justice the perpetrators of the killings.

The politician “should be prosecuted... for statements creating or promoting hatred or ill will,” Ramachandran said in his report, the Press Trust of India reported.

The 61-year-old politician, whose stress on India’s traditional Hindu identity is at odds with the ruling federal Congress party's secular credo, has always denied accusations he abetted the riots.

The bloodshed erupted after a train attack in the state in which 59 Hindu devotees were killed. Hindu mobs seeking revenge rampaged through Muslim neighbourhoods.

Modi's pro-business policies and reputation as Gujarat's “Mr Clean” has raised his standing among many Indians weary of graft as the Congress national government has become mired in scandals.

But analysts say the riots still hang over his political prospects.