Teesta, others 'hatched larger conspiracy to implicate then CM Modi at the behest of Ahmed Patel': Gujarat SIT
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Ahmedabad: The special investigation team (SIT) probing the case of fabrication of evidence for the purported 2002 Gujarat riots conspiracy has leveled grave allegations against activist Teesta Setalvad and others while opposing her bail.
In an affidavit submitted in a city sessions court on Friday by citing two witnesses, SIT claimed that Setalvad, former DGP R B Sreekumar, and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt were a part of a "larger conspiracy" by Congress veteran Ahmed Patel against then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Setalvad and Sreekumar were arrested by the Ahmedabad crime branch recently on the charge of conspiring to falsely implicate people in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The probe team has claimed that Setalvad obtained "illegal finances and other benefits and rewards from the political party" for implicating and prosecuting "various authorities and other innocent persons in Gujarat, including the then chief minister Narendra Modi".
Responding to the claim made by the Special Investigation Team, Congress today said it "categorically refutes the mischievous charges manufactured against the late Shri Ahmed Patel. This is part of the Prime Minister's systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage unleashed when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2002. It was his unwillingness and incapacity to control this carnage that had led the then Prime Minister of India Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee to remind the Chief Minister of his rajdharma."
Attacking the Prime Minister, the Congress further alleged that "The Prime Minister's political vendetta machine clearly does not even spare the departed who were his political adversaries. This SIT is dancing to the tune of its political master and will sit wherever it is told to. We know how an earlier SIT chief was rewarded with a diplomatic assignment after he had given a 'clean chit' to the Chief Minister."
The BJP hit back, saying "The Conspiracy to malign the Image of Gujarat was hatched by Teesta Setalvad & her accomplices at the behest of Sh Ahmed Patel. Ahmed Patel ji was the political adviser of Congress President Smt Sonia Gandhi. Buck stops at the door of Sonia Gandhi!"
Additional sessions judge DD Thakkar took the Special Investigation Team or SIT's reply on record and posted the hearing on the bail application on Monday.