Teesta Setalvad case: The BJP on Saturday alleged that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was the "driving force" behind the "conspiracy" to implicate then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 riots case in the state.
In a press conference, party spokesperson Sambit Patra claimed that the late Ahmed Patel, who was Gandhi's political adviser and a leading Congress leader, was just the medium through which she acted to destabilise the BJP government in the state and damage Prime Minister Modi's political career. Sonia Gandhi should address a press conference on this, he demanded.
The ruling party's attack on her came a day after the Gujarat police's Special Investigation Team (SIT) opposed arrested activist Teesta Setalvad's bail application and claimed in an affidavit before a court that she was part of a "larger conspiracy" hatched by Patel after the 2002 riots.
Defending Patel, the Congress alleged that the charges levelled by the Gujarat government against late party leader Ahmed Patel were part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage" in 2002. It also said that it was his "unwillingness and incapacity" as the then Gujarat chief minister "to control the carnage" that had led the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to remind him of his "rajdharma".
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"The charges against Ahmed Patel are part of Prime Minister's systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage unleashed when he was the chief minister of Gujarat in 2002," the statement issued by Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary in-charge of the party's communication, media and publicity department, said. "It was his unwillingness and incapacity as the then chief minister to control the carnage that had led the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to remind the chief minister of his 'rajdharma'," it said. "The Indian National Congress categorically refutes the mischievous charges manufactured against late Shri Ahmed Patel," the statement said.
Setalvad, along with former Director General of Police (DGP) R B Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, was arrested by the city crime branch for allegedly fabricating evidence to implicate innocent persons in the 2002 riots cases. Setalvad, along with Sreekumar and Bhatt, was booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 468 (forgery) and 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offence), among other offences. Citing the statements of a witness, the SIT, while opposing Setalvad's bail plea, told the court on Friday that the conspiracy was carried out at the behest of late Ahmed Patel. At Patel's behest, Setalvad received Rs 30 lakh after post-Godhra riots in 2002, it alleged.
Last month, the Supreme Court had dismissed the plea filed by Zakia Jafri, whose husband and former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed during the riots. The plea alleged a "larger conspiracy" behind the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat. But the court upheld the SIT's clean chit to Modi and 63 others.
The apex court had said there is no "tittle of material" to support the allegation that violence after the Godhra incident was a "pre-planned event" owing to the conspiracy hatched at the highest level in the state. Ehsan Jafri was among the 68 people killed at Ahmedabad's Gulberg Society during violence on February 28, 2002, a day after the Godhra train burning that claimed 59 lives. The riots that it triggered killed 1,044 people, mostly Muslims. Giving details, the Central government informed the Rajya Sabha in May 2005 that 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims were killed in the post-Godhra riots.
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