The Gujarat police has opposed activist Teesta Setalvad’s bail application while claiming that she was a part of a “larger conspiracy” by Congress veteran Ahmed Patel against then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Ms Setalvad is one of the two persons arrested by Ahmedabad crime branch recently on the charge of conspiring to falsely implicate people in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots.
She was part of a “larger conspiracy” carried out at the behest of late Congress veteran Ahmed Patel to dismiss the BJP government in the state after the 2002 riots, claimed an affidavit filed by the police’s Special Investigation Team before the sessions court.
A reaction from the Congress is awaited.
Additional sessions judge DD Thakkar took the Special Investigation Team or SIT’s reply on record and posted the hearing on the bail application on Monday.
Ms Setalvad has been arrested, along with former IPS officers RB Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt, for allegedly fabricating evidence to frame innocent people in Gujarat riots cases.
“The political objective of the applicant (Setalvad) while enacting this larger conspiracy was dismissal or destabilisation of the elected government… She obtained illegal financial and other benefits and rewards from rival political party in lieu of her attempts to wrongly implicate innocent persons in Gujarat,” said the SIT’s affidavit.