E-Paper
No relief for Teesta Setalvad in Gujarat riots case, bail hearing on Thursday
Additional Principal Judge DD Thakkar was scheduled to pronounce the order on Tuesday but said it will be done on Thursday as it (order) was not prepared yet.
A sessions court in Ahmedabad on Tuesday adjourned till Thursday the bail hearing of activist Teesta Setalvad and former state director general of police (DGP) RB Sreekumar in the case of allegedly fabricating evidence to frame innocent people in connection with the 2002 communal riots in the state.
Also Read| Congress, BJP lock horns over Gujarat SIT’s charges against Ahmed Patel
Additional Principal Judge DD Thakkar was scheduled to pronounce the order on Tuesday but said it will be done on Thursday as it (order) was not prepared yet. Last week, the sessions court reserved its order after hearing arguments from the counsels appearing for Setalvad, Sreekumar and the prosecution.
An overview of the case:
On June 25, the Gujarat Police detained Teesta Setalvad and RB Sreekumar from their homes in Juhu and Gandhinagar respectively, a day after the Supreme Court ruled out a larger conspiracy behind the 2002 Gujarat riots and expressed the need to proceed against those “disgruntled officers” and others whose “coalesced effort was to create sensation by making false revelations”, Hindustan Times earlier reported.
A day earlier (June 24), the Supreme Court had upheld the clean chit given by the court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) in February 2012 to the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and 62 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.
Zakia Jafri and Teesta Setalvad’s organisation, Citizens for Justice and Peace blamed Modi and the above 62 others for alleged inaction during the communal riots.
Also Read| ‘Driving force’: BJP targets Sonia Gandhi after SIT report on Gujarat riots case
The SIT had told the court that Setalvad and Sreekumar were part of the larger conspiracy carried out at the behest of the late Congress leader Ahmed Patel to destabilise the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Gujarat led by Narendra Modi.
Setalvad, Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt were arrested by the Ahmedabad crime branch later in June under sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Sanjiv Bhatt is already in prison in connection with a custodial torture case which he had contested.
(With inputs from Vinay Dalvi and Maulik Pathak)
