2002 riots case: Gujarat Police arrests former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, taken to Ahmedabad
Synopsis
Bhatt is the third person detained in the case, after social activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat Director General of Police R B Sreekumar. He has been imprisoned in Palanpur jail in Banaskantha district since 2018 in connection with a 27-year-old case in which he is suspected of planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer.
A Special Investigation Team of the Gujarat Police has arrested former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt via transfer warrant in a case of plotting to falsely incriminate innocent people in connection with the 2002 communal violence. Bhatt is the third person detained in the case, after social activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat Director General of Police R B Sreekumar. He has been imprisoned in Palanpur jail in Banaskantha district since 2018 in connection with a 27-year-old case in which he is suspected of planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer. During that trial, he was also sentenced to life in prison in a death penalty case in Jamnagar.
"We took Sanjiv Bhatt's custody from Palanpur jail on a transfer warrant and formally arrested him on Tuesday evening," said Chaitanya Mandlik, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad Crime Branch, said. Mandlik is a member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the state government last month to look into the roles of Bhatt, Sreekumar, and Setalvad in a case of manipulating evidence in several instances relating to the 2002 post-Godhra riots.
Also Read | Ex-judges, bureaucrats slam criticism of SC's observations against Setalvad; call it 'politically motivated'
Setalvad and Sreekumar were apprehended by the criminal branch last month and are now in custody. The two were arrested after the Supreme Court confirmed a Special Investigation Team's pardon of former Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 riots charges.
An FIR was filed against the trio with the crime branch under Indian Penal Code sections 468 (forgery for the 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).
(WIth PTI inputs)
Also Read: Activist Teesta Setalvad taken into custody for 'fabricating evidence' in Gujarat riots case
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