The Gujarat Special Investigation Team (SIT) inquiring charges of creating of evidence and conspiracy linked to the 2002 riots against activist Teesta Setalvad, retired DGP R B Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has stated in an affidavit that the accused were allegedly part of a larger conspiracy for dismissal or destabilisation by hook or by crook of the then state government. It stated that it was done allegedly at the behest of the late Ahmed Patel, political advisor to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi of that time.
B C Solanki, SIT’s Investigating Officer filed an affidavit at the City Civil and Sessions Court in Ahmedabad on Friday. It states that Setalvad allegedly acquired illegal financial and other benefits and rewards from the political party for implicating and prosecuting various authorities and other innocent persons in the State of Gujarat including the then Chief Minister.
Setalvad, Sreekumar and Bhatt are being investigated on the basis of an FIR lodged in Ahmedabad on June 25, a day after the Supreme Court dismissed a plea against the clean chit given to Narendra Modi, then Gujarat’s chief minister, and others in cases related to the 2002 riots.
In its order, the apex court had pointed to a “coalesced effort of the disgruntled officials of the state of Gujarat along with others… to create sensation by making revelations which were false to their own knowledge”. It said,”those responsible for keeping the pot boiling for 16 years “needed to be in the dock and proceed in accordance with law.”
