Gujarat Police detain activist Teesta and ex-DGP Sreekumar
After the judgment, an FIR was registered on Saturday, based on a complaint by police inspector DB Barad against Teesta Setalvad, Sreekumar, and Sanjiv Bhatt, also a former Gujarat cadre IPS officer, who is already in jail in connection with a custodial torture case which he has contested.
Gujarat police detained activist Teesta Setalvad and former state DGP RB Sreekumar from their residences in Juhu and Gandhinagar respectively on Saturday, a day after the Supreme Court ruled out a larger conspiracy behind the 2002 riots and expressed the need to proceed against those “disgruntled officers” and others whose “coalesced effort was to create sensation by making false revelations”.
On Friday, the apex court upheld the clean sheet given by the court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) in February 2012 to the then chief minister Narendra Modi and others in connection with the riots and dismissed a petition filed by Zakia Jafri, whose husband Ehsan Jafri was killed in the riots, alleging a larger conspiracy.
After the judgment, an FIR was registered on Saturday, based on a complaint by police inspector DB Barad against Setalvad, Sreekumar, and Sanjiv Bhatt, also a former Gujarat cadre IPS officer, who is already in jail in connection with a custodial torture case which he has contested.
In the complaint, Barad cited Friday’s Supreme Court judgment, which said, “At the end of the day it appears to us that a coalesced effort of the disgruntled officers of the State of Gujarat along with others was to create sensation by making revelations which were false to their own knowledge. The falsity of the claims has been fully exposed by the SIT after thorough investigation… all those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with law.”
Such officials need to be in the dock for “keeping pot boiling” with an ulterior motive, the SC had said.
During the 2002 riots in Gujarat, 69 people were killed in the Gulbarg housing society in Ahmedabad, including Congress MP Ehsan Jafri. His wife Zakia Jafri and activist Teesta Setalvad’s organisation, Citizens for Justice and Peace, blamed the then chief minister Modi and 62 others for their alleged inaction during the riots. In 2012, the SIT rejected claims of a conspiracy and submitted its findings in a local magistrate’s court, which accepted the report. Jafri challenged the report and sought a reinvestigation, which was rejected by the court in October 2017. She then approached the Supreme Court.
Based on Barad’s complaint, and the final report of the SIT, the Ahmedabad city crime branch on Saturday registered a case against Bhatt, Sreekumar and Setalvad under sections 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence), 211 (false charge of offence made with intent to injure), 218 (public servant framing incorrect record), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) read with 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
Eight officials of the Gujarat anti-terrorism squad (ATS) reached Setalvad’s residence on Juhu’s Tara road around 2.30pm on Saturday. They took her into custody and informed the Santacruz police about her detention.
“After completing the formalities, Setalvad was taken by the Gujarat police officers to Ahmedabad by road. They have registered a case against her. The case has been registered by the Ahmedabad crime branch,” said an officer attached to the Santacruz police station.
In a letter written to a senior police inspector of the Santacruz police station, Setalvad alleged that some officers of Gujarat police, including JM Patel and a woman officer, entered her bedroom and assaulted her.
“They did not allow her to speak to her lawyer, nor showed her any FIR or warrant. Eight to ten officers just barged into her compound and in the process she suffered bruises on her left hand,” said her lawyer, Vijay Hiremath.
“She along with Sreekumar will be put under arrest in a day or so after conducting necessary Covid-19 tests. Presently, they have been detained,” said a senior Gujarat police official.
Gujarat police officials said the state crime branch reached out to the ATS to carry out the detention because some of their “senior officials were in Mumbai at this time, where Setalvad resides”. Sreekumar, they said, was detained by the crime branch from his residence in Gandhinagar.
Ahmedabad crime branch’s Barad alleged in his complaint that the final report of the SIT indicated that Setalvad had “conjured/concocted/forged/fabricated facts and documents and/or evidence” and also influenced and tutored witnesses and made them depose on pre-typed affidavits.
Bhatt, the then deputy inspector general of police, and Sreekumar, the then additional director general of police, are also accused of providing false information to the SIT, according to the the FIR.