AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat Police have arrested former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt through a transfer warrant in a case of conspiring to falsely implicate innocent people in the 2002 communal riots, an official said.
Bhatt was on Tuesday arrested from Palanpur jail in Gujarat's Banaskantha district in the case registered by the city crime branch and was brought to Ahmedabad on a transfer warrant.
He was produced before a metropolitan court here on Wednesday which remanded him in police custody till July 20.
Bhatt is the third accused arrested in the case by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) after activist Teesta Setalvad and ex-state Director General of Police R B Sreekumar- who all were booked under the charge of conspiring to falsely implicate innocent people in the 2002 communal riots after the Supreme Court upheld the clean chit given by an SIT to the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi in the 2002 riots cases.
The court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate MV Chauhan granted police Bhatt's remand for seven days instead of 14 days as demanded, said special public prosecutor Amit Patel.
The investigating officer in the case stated in the remand application that 14-day custody of Bhatt was needed to question him about his intention behind making false claims about attending a late-night meeting on February 27, 2002, allegedly called by the then chief minister Narendra Modi at his residence after the Godhra train burning incident in which 59 Karsevaks had died.
The investigating officer told the court that he wanted to question Bhatt regarding when he came in touch with the other two accused (Setalvad and Sreekumar) and how and where they prepared false documents as part of a criminal conspiracy to frame innocent people.
Bhatt and Sreekumar had made several depositions before the Nanavati Commission of Inquiry, and the investigators wanted to know who else supported them in preparing their affidavits, the remand application stated.
Bhatt had been lodged at Palanpur jail in Banaskantha district since 2018 in a 27-year-old case in which he is accused of planting narcotics to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer.
During that trial, he was also convicted to life in a custodial death case in Jamnagar.
"We took Sanjiv Bhatt's custody from Palanpur jail on a transfer warrant and formally arrested him on Tuesday evening," Ahmedabad Crime Branch's Deputy Commissioner of Police Chaitanya Mandlik said.
Mandlik is one of the members of the SIT formed by the Gujarat government last month to probe the roles of Bhatt, Sreekumar and Setalvad.
Setalvad and Sreekumar were arrested by the crime branch last month and they are currently behind bars.
An FIR was registered by the crime branch against Setalvad, Sreekumar, and Bhatt under Indian Penal Code sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (forgery), 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction of capital offence), 211 (institute criminal proceedings to cause injury), and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy).
They are accused of abusing the process of law by conspiring to fabricate evidence in an attempt to frame innocent people, for an offence punishable with capital punishment.