Teesta Setalvad, Sanjiv Bhatt & RB Sreekumar
Ahmedabad: A Gujarat court sent arrested activist Teesta Setalvad and ex-DGP RB Sreekumar in 14-day Judicial custody in the case of the alleged fabrication of evidence on the 2002 Gujarat riots cases, PTI reported.
Special public prosecutor Amit Patel said that the duo were produced before metropolitan magistrate S P Patel after their police custody ended, and police did seek their remand. "The investigation officer did not ask for any further custody. They were hence sent in 14-day judicial custody," he said.
The Ahmedabad police crime branch had filed an FIR a week ago on the alleged fabrication of evidence, naming Setalvad, Sreekumar and ex-IPS office Sanjiv Bhatt. The FIR accused them of fabricating evidence to frame innocent people in the riots case. Sreekumar was arrested last Saturday and Setalvad on the following day. Meanwhile, Bhatt is already serving a life sentence in jail at Palanpur on a custodial death case.
The crime branch registered the FIR against them a day after the Supreme Court dismissed a petition challenging the clean chit given by a Special Investigation Team to then chief minister Narendra Modi and others in the 2002 post-Godhra riots cases.
Criminal proceedings against Setalvad and Sreekumar were initiated after a Supreme Court ruling rejecting a plea that challenged the clean chit served to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others by a Special Investigation Team on the Gujarat riots cases. The court dismissed the plea filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of murdered ex-Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, saying, "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 charges mounted on the accused three are IPC sections 468, 471 (forgery), 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction of capital offence), 211 (institute criminal proceedings to cause injury), 218 (public servant framing incorrect record or writing with intent to save a person from punishment or property from forfeiture) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy).