NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an admirer of persistence, but perhaps not in India’s human rights activists. What many of them are persistent about is pursuing him.

On Tuesday, Mr. Modi gave a speech condemning religious violence of any kind. Yet many Indian activists and others see the prime minister, whose political origins are in nationalist Hindu organizations, as the archvillain in the 2002 rioting that claimed hundreds of lives, mostly Muslim, in the state of Gujarat, where Mr. Modi was the chief minister. In the years since, as Mr. Modi’s popularity has soared, two activists, Teesta Setalvad and her husband, Javed Anand, have been dogged in their efforts to bring him to trial, particularly in one case.

During the 2002 riots, scores of Muslims in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s largest city, took refuge in the home of Ehsan Jafri, a former member of Parliament. As Hindu mobs surrounded his house, Mr. Jafri called several powerful politicians for help. Some people claim that he called Mr. Modi, too, which would have been a natural thing for a senior politician to do under the circumstances, but there is no evidence to support this.

In any case, no substantial help arrived, and more than 60 people were slaughtered, including Mr. Jafri, who was hacked to pieces and burned. Mr Modi, who was within a few miles of Mr. Jafri’s house that day, said he did not learn of the incident until many hours later.