AHMEDABAD: A sessions court in Ahmedabad on Saturday rejected the bail applications of activist Teesta Setalvad and former Director General of Police, R B Sreekuamr, arrested for allegedly fabricating documents to frame innocent people in 2002 riots cases. Additional principal judge Dilip Kumar Thakkar pronounced the order on the bail pleas, saying the accused apparently aimed to “destabilise” the Gujarat government and defame the state for their ulterior motives.”
The court observed, “The applicants-accused have in conspiracy with others with a view to defame the then CM and others made accusations against Government that post-Godhra riots were sponsored by the Government and thereby defamed the State not only in the country but in the world also and with ulterior motive thereby obtained personal goal and monetary benefit from one political faction as well as other countries…”
Setalvad and Sreekumar were arrested after the Supreme Court on June 24 dismissed a petition filed by Zakia Jafri, the wife of slain former Congress MP Ehsaan Jafri who was killed during the Gujarat riots in 2002. Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, a third accused, had not applied for bail. He was already in jail in another case when he was arrested.
The government had argued that Zakia was used as a tool by the accused for their vested interest, and that the NGO of Teesta, named Citizen for Justice was registered after the post-Godhra riot cases.The court noted that Sreekumar and Bhatt were witnesses in Jafri’s 2006 complaint, and so, “if this applicants-accused would be enlarged on bail then definitely it will tamper or hamper the witnesses and influence the investigation.”
Taking note of how Teesta tried to create pressure on the media, the court said, “she had tried to pressurize the media and she had written a letter to Amicus Curiae, etc. conduct which itself shows that she is having nature to derail the investigation in the present case if she is enlarged on bail.”