New Delhi: Social activist Teesta Setalvad, accused by an SIT of conspiring to destabilize the then-elected authorities in Gujarat and taking cash from late Congress chief Ahmed Patel, informed a neighborhood court docket on Monday that these fees and others levelled in opposition to her have been baseless. The Mumbai-based activist, who’s in jail in Gujarat, additionally denied fees of fabricating proof to implicate harmless folks within the 2002 riots instances.
During the listening to on her bail software, Setalvad argued that the slew of allegations levelled by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Gujarat police, together with taking cash from late Congress chief Patel, have been baseless.
Another accused within the case, former Director General of Police (DGP) RB Sreekumar, additionally denied allegations earlier than the court docket of Sessions Judge DD Thakkar and mentioned his statements made earlier than an inquiry fee have immunity from felony prosecution.
The court docket stored the date for subsequent listening to on July 20 when the prosecution will start its argument.
The Special Investigation Team probing the case, in its affidavit earlier than the court docket final week, had accused Setalvad of conspiring with Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt for “dismissal or destabilisation of the elected government in Gujarat by hook or by crook.” Setalvad, together with Sreekumar and Bhatt, was arrested by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch final month for allegedly fabricating proof to implicate harmless individuals within the 2002 riots instances.
They have been booked underneath IPC sections 468 (forgery) and 194 (giving or fabricating false proof with intent to obtain conviction for capital offence), amongst others.
Opposing her bail plea, the SIT mentioned within the affidavit that the conspiracy was carried out on the behest of the late Patel and that Setalvad obtained Rs 30 lakh after the 2002 riots on the behest of the senior Congress chief.
Setalvad used to satisfy the leaders of a “prominent national party in power at that time in New Delhi to implicate names of senior leaders of the BJP government in riot cases”, the SIT additional claimed within the affidavit.
Last month, the Supreme Court had dismissed a plea filed by Zakia Jafri, whose husband and former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed through the riots.
The plea had alleged a “larger conspiracy” behind the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat. But the apex court docket upheld a earlier SIT’s clear chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi (the then-chief minister of Gujarat) and 63 others.
The apex court docket had mentioned there isn’t a “title of material” to help the allegation that violence which broke out after the Godhra practice burning incident was a “pre-planned event” owing to a conspiracy hatched on the highest degree within the state.
Ehsan Jafri was among the many 68 folks killed at Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Society throughout violence on February 28, 2002, a day after 59 folks died when the Sabarmati Express practice was set afire close to Godhra station.
The statewide riots triggered within the aftermath of the practice burning incident had killed 1,044 folks.
The Union authorities had knowledgeable the Rajya Sabha in May 2005 that 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims have been killed within the post-Godhra riots.
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