Teesta Setalvad, ex-cops used fake papers in bid to corner those cleared by SIT: FIR | India News

MUMBAI/AHMEDABAD: The FIR registered by the Ahmedabad crime branch accuses activist Teesta Setalvad specifically of “conjuring, concocting, forging and fabricating facts and documents, including witnesses’ testimonies, and influencing and tutoring witnesses”.
The allegations are based on the cross-examination of Zakia Jafri during the Gulbarg massacre trial. Setalvad’s NGO supported Jafri, who had filed the petition alleging a larger conspiracy behind the riots, throughout her legal battle.
As part of detention procedure, the Gujarat ATS team first took Setalvad to Santacruz police station from her Mumbai home, where she lodged a complaint claiming “illegal arrest” and threat to her life, sources said. The team bringing Setalvad to Ahmedabad was expected to reach the city late Saturday.

Ex-DGP RB Sreekumar was taken into custody in the evening after being summoned to the crime branch headquarters at Gaekwad Haveli for interrogation earlier in the day and then sent for a Covid test.
The FIR lodged by inspector DB Barad of the Ahmedabad city crime branch against Setalvad and the two ex-IPS officers alleges that they fraudulently passed off forged documents as genuine “with intent to procure conviction of capital punishment” against those whom the SIT had cleared.
Dismissed IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has been accused of making false claims in 2011 that he was present at a meeting at Narendra Modi’s then residence on February 27, 2002. He alleged that the erstwhile CM asked bureaucrats to go slow on rioters.
The FIR also charges Bhatt with furnishing forged documents “in order to implicate various persons”. The complaint states that the SIT probe revealed he colluded with people who had vested interest, and NGOs and political functionaries who wanted to settle scores by “framing innocent individuals”. Bhatt allegedly received incentives for this, the FIR states, while making a case for a detailed investigation.
Sreekumar is accused of making false claims in his affidavits before the Godhra inquiry commission.
The then DGP had alleged that he was illegally issued verbal orders that he recorded in a “semi-official diary”. The FIR also accuses Sreekumar of resorting to “antedating” in his controversial diary and using official stamps without the knowledge of the relevant authorities.
In 2006, Jafri had filed a criminal complaint alleging a larger conspiracy behind the riots and accused Modi and 62 others. Her husband, former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, was among the 69 victims in the Gulbarg Society massacre that took place a day after the Godhra train burning incident on February 27, 2002, in which 59 kar sevaks were killed.