2002 Gujarat Riots Case | Police Arrest Former DGP Sreekumar, FIR Filed For 'Falsely Accusing Innocent Persons'
Teesta Setalvad alleged that her arrest was unlawful and that she had received a threat to her life after being taken up from her home in Mumbai.
The Gujarat police arrested former director general of police R B Sreekumar and social activist Teesta Setalvad on Saturday for allegedly conspiring to falsely accuse innocent people, a day after the Supreme Court upheld the all-clearclear given by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots cases, news agency PTI reported.
An official of the Ahmedabad crime branch, also known as former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who is already imprisoned in another case, made a complaint that served as the basis for the First Information Report (FIR).
Teesta Setalvad alleged that her arrest was unlawful and that she had received a threat to her life after being taken up from her home in Mumbai.
Once she is taken to Ahmedabad, she will be arrested, according to police sources.
In a case involving a custodial death, Sanjiv Bhatt received a life sentence; in another, he is charged with using contraband to falsely accuse a lawyer.
According to reports, Teesta Setalvad was dragged away from her home in Mumbai's Juhu neighbourhood and escorted to Santacruz Police Station to tell the neighbourhood police of her imprisonment.
"She has been taken by the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad....we were not informed in advance about the case. They barged into the house and assaulted her before taking her with them," alleged her lawyer Vijay Hiremath.
Teesta Setalvad was not attacked, according to a local police source.
According to the complaint made by inspector D B Barad of the Ahmedabad crime branch, Teesta Setalvad, Sanjiv Bhatt, and R B Sreekumar "conspired to abuse the process of law by fabricating false evidence to make several persons to be convicted in an offence that is punishable with capital punishment."
They prepared false records and dishonestly used those records as genuine with the intention of causing damage and injury to numerous people, according to the complaint, and they instituted "false and malicious criminal proceedings against innocent people with intention to cause injury to several persons."
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) established by the Supreme Court to look into crimes related to the Gujarat riots of 2002 and different arguments put out by the accused before the Justice Nanavati-Shah Commission of Inquiry were included in the complaint.
The FIR was filed earlier in the day under sections of the Indian Penal Code 468, 471 (forgery), 211 (initiate criminal proceedings to cause harm), 218 (public servant framing incorrect record or writing with intent to save person from punishment or property from forfeiture), and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy).
"Teesta Setalvad conjured, concocted, forged, fabricated facts and documents and/or evidence including fabrication of documents by persons who were protective witnesses of the complainant, Zakia Jafri," as per the complaint.
In the Supreme Court petition against then-chief minister Narendra Modi and others, Teesta Setalvad and her non-governmental organisation were co-petitioners alongside Zakia Jafri. The plea was denied by the court on Friday, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others were given the go light.
Teesta Setalvad was also charged in the complaint of coaching and pressuring witnesses to testify on pre-written affidavits. Even Zakia Jafri was trained by Teesta Setalvad, as was obvious from her evidence before the Nanavati Commission on August 22, 2003, it added.
The complaint claimed that IPS officers Sanjiv Bhatt and R B Sreekumar, who served as the additional director general of police (DGP) of the Armed Unit during the 2002 Godhra riot and the intelligence DGP shortly after, gave several depositions to the Nanavati Commission of Inquiry that were critical of the Gujarati government.
In addition to falsifying papers sent to the SIT, it was reported that Sanjiv Bhatt also fraudulently claimed to have attended a late-night meeting on February 27, 2002, held by the then-Chief Minister Narendra Modi at his home.
Many of the claims in Zakia Jafri's plea, it alleged, were based on R B Sreekumar's nine affidavits submitted before the Nanavati-Shah Commission.
"At the end of the day, it appears to us that a coalesced effort of the disgruntled officials of the State of Gujarat along with others was to create sensation by making revelations which were false to their own knowledge," the apex court onserved in a judgement passed on Friday.
“The falsity of their claims had been fully exposed by the SIT after a thorough investigation … As a matter of fact, all those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceed in accordance with law,” the court order said.
(With PTI Inputs)
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