AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat High Court on Monday stated that it was not inclined to dismiss an FIR submitted against activist Teesta Setalvad in 2006 in connection with the Pandarwada mass grave digging case. Justice Sandeep Bhatt asked Setalvad’s lawyer, “After going through the record, I’m not inclined, prima facie,” Justice Bhatt stated, and scheduled the case for hearing on January 9.
To this, Setalvad’s lawyer, Yogesh Ravani, informed the bench that he would do everything he could to convince the court that “no offense is made out”. “The FIR contains nothing. There is no evidence of an offense. It’s just political victimization,” the attorney argued. The court was hearing Setalvad’s petition to nullify an FIR registered against her in the Pandarwada mass grave digging case in the Mahisagar district in 2006.
After her name appeared in a 2011 FIR related to the excavation of 28 bodies from a mass burial site near Pandarwada of Gujarat in December 2005, Setalvad filed a plea in court in 2017. The bodies were those who died in the post-Godhra riots. Gujarat police filed a formal complaint in 2006 alleging fabricating evidence, destroying evidence, entering burial site without permission, and inciting religious sentiment.