2002 Gujarat Riots: Teesta Setalvad Moves Gujarat HC To Quash FIR Against Her

Social activist Teesta Setalvad has recently filed a petition before the Gujarat High Court seeking the dismissal of an FIR lodged against her by the city crime branch.

The FIR accuses her of fabricating evidence in connection with the 2002 riots cases.

A sessions court declined her request for discharge in this matter, while the Supreme Court granted her bail subsequent to the Gujarat High Court’s denial of relief.

In her plea to the Gujarat High Court, Setalvad aims to quash the FIR, and the court is scheduled to hear the matter in a few days.

Setalvad with two others, former state Director General of Police RB Sreekumar and former Indian Police Service officer Sanjiv Bhatt, got arrested by the city crime branch in June 2022 on charges of forgery and fabricating evidence with the intent to implicate Gujarat government functionaries in the 2002 riots cases.

Previously, an FIR was registered against them after the top court dismissed the plea by Zakia Jafri, whose husband and ex-Congress MP Ehsan Jafri got killed at the time of the riots.

Teesla Setalvad has been booked under Sections 468 and 194 of IPC among others.

Zakia Jafri’s plea alleged a “larger conspiracy” behind the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat involving the then Chief Minister, Narendra Modi. The court upheld the Special Investigation Team’s clean chit to Modi and 63 others.

In its judgment, the Supreme Court observed, “At the end of the day, it appears to us that a coalesced effort of the disgruntled officials of the State of Gujarat along with others was to create a sensation by making revelations which were false to their own knowledge.

“The falsity of their claims had been fully exposed by the SIT after a thorough investigation. As a matter of fact, all those involved in such abuse of process need to be in the dock and proceed in accordance with law.”

Ehsan Jafri was among those 68 people who got 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 triggered killed 1,044 people, mostly Muslims. While giving details, the Central government informed the Rajya Sabha in May 2005 that 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims got killed in post-Godhra riots.