Teesta Setalvad, Sreekumar despatched in judicial remand, cops don’t search additional custody

By PTI

AHMEDABAD: A court docket right here on Saturday despatched activist Teesta Setalvad and former Director-General of Police R B Sreekumar, arrested for alleged fabrication of proof concerning the 2002 Gujarat riots circumstances, in 14-day judicial custody.

The two had been produced earlier than metropolitan Justice of the Peace S P Patel after their police custody ended.

The police didn’t search their additional remand, stated particular public prosecutor Amit Patel.

Setalvad and Sreekumar had been arrested over a First Information Report (FIR) registered final Saturday by the Ahmedabad police crime department.

“The investigation officer did not ask for any further custody. They were hence sent in 14-day judicial custody,” prosecutor Patel stated.

Sreekumar was arrested final Saturday and Setalvad the subsequent day after being picked up by the Gujarat Anti Terrorist Squad from her house in Mumbai.

Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who’s serving life sentence in a custodial loss of life case in a jail at Palanpur in Banaskantha district, can be an accused within the case.

He will likely be dropped at Ahmedabad on switch warrant, police sources stated.

The crime department registered the FIR towards them a day after the Supreme Court dismissed a petition difficult the clear chit given by a Special Investigation Team to then chief minister Narendra Modi and others within the 2002 post-Godhra riots circumstances.

Sreekumar, Setalvad and Bhatt have been accused of conspiring to manufacture proof in an try to border up harmless individuals in Gujarat riots circumstances.

While dismissing the petition filed by Zakia Jafri whose husband and former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed through the riots, the apex court docket had noticed 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.”

Against Setalvad, Sreekumar and Bhatt, police have pressed Indian Penal Code sections 468, 471 (forgery), 194 (giving or fabricating false proof with intent to acquire conviction of capital offence), 211 (institute legal proceedings to trigger harm), 218 (public servant framing incorrect report or writing with intent to avoid wasting individual from punishment or property from forfeiture) and 120 (B) (legal conspiracy).

Police took into consideration submissions made by the accused earlier than the SIT shaped by the Supreme Court to analyze riots circumstances in addition to the Justice Nanavati-Shah Commission of Inquiry.

The Gujarat authorities has shaped a three-member Special Investigation Team headed by the DIG, Gujarat ATS Deepan Bhadran to analyze the case.