A relentless attack to break the resistance
Teesta Setalvad
First it was
“Kidnapping of Zahira Shaikh”. Teesta Setalvad, the author of this column, was
a co-petitioner in the Best bakery case. Zahira Sheikh was the star witness.
The first information report was based on Zahira’s eyewitness account of the
massacre that occurred during the Gujarat communal carnage. Fourteen
people were burnt to death on March 1, 2002, when a mob set fire to the Best
Bakery, owned by Sheikh’s family, situated below their house. Zahira was the
boldest witness in the cases.
Zahira
changed her statement in front of Vadodra Fast Track Court and said that
she did not see anything. After a few weeks Zahira Sheikh arrived in
Mumbai and said that she lied under oath because local Bharatiya Janata
Party leader Madhu Srivastav threatened her. Zahira was given protection in
Mumbai after the CJP, of which Teesta Setalvad is secretary, who helped her
file an appeal in the Supreme Court asking for a re-trial outside Gujarat. The
Supreme Court granted her request and ordered a re-trial in Mumbai, as it felt
that a fair trial was not possible in Gujarat. The Best Bakery case was a
landmark case, as it was probably the first in which the Supreme Court ordered
a re-trial outside a State.
The trial was under way in Mumbai
and the prosecution had examined 27 witnesses, including two eyewitnesses.
Zahira was scheduled to testify in a few weeks. However, she suddenly
appeared in Vadodara and changed her stand once again at a press conference organised
by Ahmedabad-based lawyer Jal Unwala at a five-star hotel. The details of how
Zahira reached Vadodara and who paid to get her there remain unclear. After the
press conference, she was put up at a club near the High Court in Ahmedabad and
was provided commando protection. The staff of the Silver Pak Guest House was
driven out so that top political functionaries could visit without being
observed. Today these top state politicl functionaries are players in national
politics. It was the Holy month of Ramadan then, and Zahira, who had never worn
a burqa until the second turnaround suddenly swore that she would never
lie during this especially Holy period. Until the ignominy of television
cameras (more honest in their inquiry then) found her quite happily consuming
chicken biriyani in the middle of the afternoon.
Zahira denied that she was ever
threatened by Madhu Srivastav and said that the Sessions Court judgment
acquitting the 13 accused was “correct”. Asked about the petition filed by
Teesta Setalvad in the Supreme Court, and her affidavit, Zahira said that
the petition was drafted in English. She said she was told that the document
was regarding the Best Bakery property and thus she signed. Sheikh claimed she
was not aware that she was filing a petition in the Supreme Court.
However, the fact that Zahira was physically present in the Supreme
Court during one of the hearings went against her. As also the fact that she
was freely moving around in Delhi, even visiting the Nizamuddin Dargah where a
few dozen persons could vow that she had not been kidnapped.
Zahira sheikh also alleged that
Teesta Setalvad kept her locked in a flat in Andheri for seven months. However,
the magazine Frontline learned that Zahira fell out with
Teesta Setalvad and had been living with her sister in Mumbai since December
2003. She had even written to the Police Commissioner saying that she did not
want police protection. Around the time of her testimony, Zahira demanded that
Teesta Setalvad’s organisation give her a flat and a bakery in Mumbai, said the
public prosecutor Manjula Rao.
There were other witnesses who had
identified some of the accused, so the case stood strong without Zahira and her
family.After seeing Zahira Sheikh’s multiple flip flops , I. Teesta
Setalvad went to Supreme Court and asked for a thorough investigation.Supreme
Court Registrar report found that unaccounted money had found itself into
Zahira Sheikh’s account. Madhukar Srivastava BJP MLA refused to give voice
test samples to the SC (who is above the law) (2005). Zahira Sheikh was
put behind bars for her blatant lies and Teesta Setalvad was found innocent.
Then there
was the article “Tutoring of Witnesses” (Sardarpura, Naroda Patia and
Gaam). Special Courts Sardarpura, Naroda Patia conclusively held there was
no tutoring (other trials are still on (2011,2012)During this time there were
attempts to arrest Teesta Setalvad. However the Supreme Court of India stayed
Investigations. http://www.cjponline.org/gujaratTrials/teestayasmeenstat.htm
Then there
was the case of “digging up mass graves” in Lunawada when Teesta Setalvad was
hundreds of kilometres away. She was illegally “added” as an accused 5 years
(2011) after the FIR was lodged (2006) a la Raees Khan Pathan via Gujarat
Police . Attempts to arrest Teesta Setalvad were made yet again but
the SC has stayed Investigations
The latest
assault was about ‘funds’ for Gulberg Memorial. When the anticipatory bail
to Teesta Setalvad was denied by Gujarat High Court an attempt to arrest Teesta
Setalvad yet again was made by Gujrat Police within hours of the verdict.
Supreme Court stayed the arrest yet again.
After 20,000
documents INCLUDING credit card vouchers etc have been submitted –and every
single filthy allegation of using trust funds for personal expenses
disproved--now there is a new attack on Teesta Setalvad’s Sabrang Trust. According to Gujarat’s Minister of State, Mr Rajnikant
Patel, the state government contacted the Home Minister requesting the inquiry
into the Setalvad’s Sabrang Trust on the basis of their belief that foreign
funds sent to her NGO, in particular by the US-based Ford Foundation, were
misused in order “to create communal disharmony” within the state of Gujarat,
and carrying out “anti-national propaganda” abroad. Following the letter from
the Gujarat Government to the Home Minister, senior officers from the FCRA
monitoring unit visited the registered offices of the Sabrang Trust, along with those of Citizens for Justice and Peace.
With the full co-operation of Teesta Setalvad and her staff, the inspection
team carried out a detailed investigation into the records of both NGOs from
6-8 April 2015, during which hundreds of copies of original accounts and
records were provided upon request to the investigation unit. The
intensified investigation into Teesta Setalvad and the work of her NGOs comes
in the build up to her anticipatory bail plea, which shall be heard by a 3
member bench of the Supreme Court on 21 April 2015, in relation to legal
proceedings pending against her and her spouse, Mr Javed Anand, based on
allegations of embezzling funds intended for the construction of a memorial to
the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The question
arises is Gujarat Government paranoid about the legal processes related to 2002
(still pending)? Are the constant attacks on us and our organisations CJP and
SABRANG primarily to malign Setalvad’s image because she is the only activist
in the history of Indian riots who has managed to put 117 rioters behind bars
with astute legal advocacy? Narendra Modi’s minister Maya Kodnani was one of
the many convicted along with Babu Bajrangi.
Zakia Jafri’s
case proceedings will re-start soon. Narendra Modi is one of those sought
to be prosecuted in the case. We have been providing legal aid to Zakia appa
and her family? Are we then being hounded because despite the intimidation and
attacks we have continued in our work?
That in the forst week of April
Survivor witnesses challenged in the Supreme Court attempts made in the Gujarat
HC to single out Kodnani’s appeal and rush it through without other appeaks
being heard? That the SIT, for once (after the survivors had filed the SLP)
decided to also push for recusal of the case away from the Judge hearing it?
And that the SC stayed the hearing of the appeal for two months?
The war is on. Between the
foundations that this nation was built on and efforts to turn it into a
majoritarian autocratic state. Vindictively stifling dissent and criticism is a
way of crippling resistance. Will they succeeed? Only if we allow them to.
Ends
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