Teesta Setalvad & Former DGP Sreekumar Sent to 14-day Judicial Custody

Teesta Setalvad/File Image.

(Photo: Facebook)

Following the completion of police remand, a magisterial court sent activist Teesta Setalvad and former Director-General of Police (DGP) RB Sreekumar to judicial custody on Saturday, 2 July.

No bail application has been moved yet, and their judicial custody will continue until bail is granted to them, The Indian Express reported.

The two were produced before metropolitan magistrate S P Patel. The police did not seek their further remand, said special public prosecutor Amit Patel.

A day after Supreme Court dismissed the plea of Zakia Jafri, wife of slain former Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Ehsan Jafri, uphelding the clean chit by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to then Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots, they were arrested by the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB).

Former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who is serving a life sentence in a custodial death case at a jail at Palanpur in Banaskantha district, is also an accused in the case.

Trio Accused of Conspiring to Fabricate Evidence

The trio is accused of abusing the process of law by conspiring to fabricate the evidence in an attempt to frame innocent people for an offence punishable with capital punishment in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The case is based on a complaint filed by Darshansinh B Barad, Police Inspector, Detection of Crime Branch Ahmedabad City. The complaint cites the Supreme Court's judgment from Friday in Zakia Jafri's plea challenging the SIT probe in the Gujarat riots case.

Setalvad was detained hours after Home Minister Amit Shah said in an interview that her NGO had spread "baseless" information regarding the 2002 Gujarat riots.

While Sreekumar was arrested last Saturday, 25 June, Setalvad was picked up by the Gujarat Anti Terrorist Squad from her home in Mumbai the following day.

The Gujarat government has formed a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by the DIG, Gujarat ATS Deepan Bhadran to investigate the case.

(With inputs from PTI and The Indian Express.)