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SIT files charge sheet against Teesta, others for ‘fabricating evidence’
According to the charge sheet, Teesta Setalvad carried out a larger conspiracy after the 2002 Gujarat riots at the behest of veteran Congress leader and former political adviser to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the late Ahmed Patel, to destabilise the elected state government under the leadership of then chief minister Narendra Modi.
A special investigation team (SIT) has submitted a charge sheet against activist Teesta Setalvad, retired Director General of Police R B Sreekumar, and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in a case of fabricating evidence to frame innocent people in connection with the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat.
The accused have been charged under Sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offence) and 218 (public servant framing incorrect record or writing with intent to save person from punishment or property from forfeiture) of the Indian Penal Code, among other provisions.
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According to the charge sheet, Setalvad carried out a larger conspiracy after the 2002 Gujarat riots at the behest of veteran Congress leader and former political adviser to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the late Ahmed Patel, to destabilise the elected state government under the leadership of then chief minister Narendra Modi. Several meetings took place between the three accused, it added.
While Setalvad has rejected the charge of being part of any conspiracy, the Congress said the charges levelled against Patel were part of Narendra Modi’s “systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for communal carnage” unleashed during his term as Gujarat chief minister.
Patel’s daughter Mumtaz questioned why her father was not prosecuted for “hatching such a big conspiracy” against Modi till 2020.
Deputy Inspector General of Police Deepan Bhadran, who heads the SIT and the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) told HT that the charge sheet was filed on September 20, in an Ahmedabad court.
Former IPS officer-turned-lawyer Rahul Sharma has also been made a witness in the case. The 6,300-page charge sheet cites 90 witnesses including Congress Rajya Sabha MP Shaktisinh Gohil.
An FIR was lodged against Setalvad, Sreekumar, and Bhatt on June 25, a day after the Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed by Zakia Jafri, whose husband Ehsan Jafri was killed in the riots, alleging a larger conspiracy and challenging the clean chit given by the SIT to then Gujarat chief minister Modi and others in the 2002 post-Godhra riots cases.
The apex court expressed the need to proceed against those “disgruntled officers” and others whose “coalesced effort was to create a sensation by making false revelations”.
The FIR is based on a complaint filed by DB Barad, a police inspector who is serving in Crime Branch, Ahmedabad city since 2019. The complainant has cited the observations of the Supreme Court in the judgment delivered on June 24.
Setalvad, arrested in the last week of June, was released on interim bail following a September 2 order of the Supreme Court. Sreekumar remains lodged in jail in the case. Bhatt is in a jail in Palanpur where he is serving life sentence in a custodial death case.
