AHMEDABAD: The special investigation team (SIT) probing the case of fabrication of evidence for the purported 2002 Gujarat riots conspiracy told a city sessions court on Friday that social activist Teesta Setalvad, former DGP R B Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt had carried out the larger conspiracy with the political objective of dismissal and destabilization of the then elected Gujarat government and to wrongly implicate innocent people, including the then chief minister Narendra Modi.
Opposing the bail pleas filed by Setalvad and Sreekumar, SIT filed an affidavit by citing two witnesses and claimed that the conspiracy to malign Gujarat’s image was hatched by them “at the behest of Late Shri Ahmed Patel, then Member of Parliament from Rajya Sabha and political advisor of the president of the Indian National Congress”.
The affidavit further reads, “The applicant (Setalvad) held a meeting with Ahmed Patel and received Rs 5 lakh at the first instance, where the money was given to her by one of the witnesses on the instruction of Patel. Two days later, they met at the Circuit House at Shahibaug in Ahmedabad, where she received Rs 25 lakh more from Patel. This amount was not for relief work, as relief activity was carried out by Gujarat Relief Committee. There were many other political leaders in the meeting.”
Citing the witnesses, the SIT further claimed that Setalvad visited relief camps within a week of the Godhra train incident and held meetings with political functionaries. She along with Sanjiv Bhatt met Patel at his New Delhi residence four months after the riots “in a clandestine manner”. The SIT claimed that they also met other political leaders of the ruling party at the Centre later “to implicate senior leaders of the BJP government in Gujarat”.
The SIT alleged that in 2007, the central government conferred Padma Shri on Setalvad “for malicious and vexatious prosecution”. The probe agency has accused her of undertaking these efforts to achieve her political ambition and that she aimed to become a Rajya Sabha member. The SIT cited a witness, who claimed that Setalvad questioned a political leader about why film personalities Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar were made MPs and she was not considered. “Shabana and Javed Miyan-Bibi are to be given a chance? Why am I not being made a member of Rajya Sabha?”
To further substantiate its claim of political motive to destabilise the state government, the affidavit also quoted Setalvad’s statement made after the exhumation of bodies of the riots victims at Pandarwada in Panchmahal in 2006. She had told the media that the government in Gujarat would have to resign within three days.
The probe agency cited the case of Qutubuddin Ansari, whose hand-holding was done by Setalvad after he became the face of the 2002 riots, and how he was paraded before the media to collect funds and to tarnish Gujarat’s image. The affidavit further said, “Qutubuddin Ansari stated that when he became aware of the political and financial misuse of his image, he returned to Gujarat.”
The affidavit mentioned how Setalvad tried to be in touch with murdered former minister Haren Pandya’s father, Vithalbhai. She tried to persuade him to join her NGO — Citizen for Justice and Peace (CJP). “She got a complaint prepared at advocate Sohail Tirmizil’s office for Vithalbhai, but he refused to put in his signature because several innocent persons had been mentioned in it as accused,” claimed the SIT.
The affidavit also mentioned about the alleged misappropriation of funds for personal use as revealed during an investigation of an FIR lodged by one Firozkhan Pathan, a resident of Gulbarg Society. It claimed that Rs 63 lakh was deposited in CJP’s IDBI Bank account, and Rs 88 lakh in Sabrang Trust’s account with Union Bank of India and allegedly misappropriated. It has been alleged that these amounts were collected for the rehabilitation of Gulbarg Society residents and for the creation of a museum at the colony. It cited Gujarat high court’s expression of shock about the alleged misappropriation of funds.
The SIT also rebutted Setalvad’s claim that she had not tutored Zakia Jafri, a complainant of a larger conspiracy behind post-Godhra riots. It cited a paragraph of Jafri’s cross-examination in which she made a statement in this regard.
