Godhra riots case: Gujarat SIT arrests jailed ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt

Gujarat police's special investigation team (SIT), which is probing the criminal case of alleged tutoring of witnesses and fabricating evidence to seek a conviction in post-Godhra riot cases, on Tuesday arrested ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt from Palanpur sub-jail.

He was brought to Ahmedabad on a transfer warrant and will be produced before a court on Wednesday.

Bhatt is the third accused to have been arrested in this case after Mumbai activist Teesta Setalvad and ex-Director General of Police, Gujarat, R B Sreekumar. The former IPS officer, Bhatt, was picked up from Palanpur jail where he was lodged for allegedly framing a lawyer in a narcotics case in a two-decade-old case. Bhatt is also serving life imprisonment for custodial killing in Jamnagar. Bhatt has been behind the bars ever since his arrest in September 2018 for framing a Rajasthan-based lawyer in a narcotics case.

Also Read | Godhra Riots: Setalvad, Sreekumar, lodged at Sabarmati jail, move bail pleas

Deputy Inspector General of Police, Deepan Bhadran, who is heading the SIT, confirmed to DH that "Bhatt was arrested from Palanpur sub-jail and brought to Ahmedabad on transfer warrant." Bhadran also heads Anti-Terrorism Squad as DIG.

The FIR against Bhatt, Setalvad and Sreekumar was registered on June 25 with the Detection of Crime Branch, a day after the Supreme Court's observation against them while dismissing Zakia Jafri's petition challenging the clean chit given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other Gujarat government officials during the riots for their alleged roles.

While rejecting her plea, the top court in a strongly worded order said that those who had "kept the pot boiling" with an "ulterior motive" for the past 16 years should be in the dock and be "proceeded with in accordance with the law". Barely hours after registration of the FIR, a team of ATS detained Setalvad in Mumbai and brought her to Ahmedabad while Sreekumar was arrested from his Gandhinagar residence. Setalvad was arrested a day later. Both are under judicial custody in Sabarmati Jail and have filed regular bail pleas.

Also Read: Teesta Setalvad: Dark days ahead for rights crusader

Setalvad and Sreekumar are facing charges of "fabrication of documents, influencing and tutoring the witnesses and making them depose on pre-typed affidavits." Bhatt is accused of falsely implicating several persons based on his false testimony before the Nanavati Commission, among others.

The FIR alleges Bhatt of colluding with NGOs, and political leaders to implicate innocent persons. Bhatt was one of the key witnesses in Zakia Jafri's petition. He had claimed in an affidavit that he was part of the meeting held in Gandhinagar presided over by then CM Modi who allegedly had said, "to let Hindus vent their anger" on February 27 night, hours after the Sabarmati Express train burning incident at Godhra station.

This incident is said to have triggered the widespread communal clashes known as post-Godhra riots. The Supreme Court appointed SIT, which probed Jafri's allegation and gave a clean chit to Modi and over 60 others, and found Bhatt's claim not reliable. The 1988-batch IPS officer, Bhatt was sacked from the service in 2015.