Ahmedabad, Sept 18: Noted danseuse Mallika Sarabhai today accused Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi of using public funds to “bribe her lawyers” in an attempt to derail proceedings of the PIL filed in the Supreme Court by her on the post-Godhra 2002 riots case.
Sarabhai had filed a PIL in April 2002 in which she contended that the state administration and Modi were ‘complicit' in the 2002 riots in the state.
“Chief minister Narendra Modi had called the then State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) chief RB Sreekumar and another IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who was his deputy in SIB at that time, and asked them to pay my lawyers Rs 10 lakh to derail the proceedings of PIL filed in the Supreme Court by me,” she alleged.
Sarabhai provided to the media, copy of an affidavit filed by Sreekumar recently before the G T Nanavati and Akshay Mehta Commission probing the riots here.
“Police officer Sanjiv Bhatt had also in his deposition in May to the Nanavati Commission said that he was given instructions by Shri Narendra Modi to use secret services' money to bribe the lawyers who were involved in my case to delay what the Chief Minister felt was a very dangerous PIL for the health of the government,” she claimed.
“I then went to the (Nanavati) Commission and asked them if I could cross examine Sanjiv Bhatt and who was then Sanjiv Bhatt's boss and whether Mr Sreekumar was also involved,” Sarabhai said.
“The Commission turned me down and I then wrote to them saying that Sreekumar should be asked to file an affidavit about this. The Commission gave me the permission and I requested Sreekumar, on behalf of the Commission to file an affidavit, which he filed on Friday,” she said. PTI
