Activist Teesta Setalwad and former Gujarat DGP RB Sreekumar have been detained in police custody for four days by a metropolitan magisterial court in Ahmedabad on Sunday in connection with the criminal case of the alleged fabrication of evidence and tutoring witnesses of 2002 post-Godhra riots to frame innocent people.
A metropolitan magisterial court in Ahmedabad has given the orders to remand Mumbai-based activist Teesta Setalvad and retired Gujarat cadre IPS officer R B Sreekumar to police custody till 2. They both have been connected with the alleged fabrication of evidence in an attempt to frame innocent people for an offense punishable with capital punishment.
The metropolitan magistrate SP Patel heard both the sides and sent Sreekumar and Setalwad to police custody till July 1 for investigation. Setalwad’s lawyers opposed the remand arguing that there was no need for custodial interrogation as the entire case is based on documentary evidence that the accused don’t possess.
Setalwad also accused the police of mishandling her and detaining her without a warrant. She was taken to the city civil hospital for a medical exam during the hearing at the court’s order.
Shreekumar was arrested on Saturday evening after he was summoned to the Ahmedabad Crime Branch, and Teesta Setalwad was detained by the Gujarat Police on Sunday morning. The Gujarat ATS arrived at Setalwad’s Juhu apartment in Mumbai on Saturday night and picked her up.
“The court has kept the medical certificate in its record. We had demanded a 14-day remand on the ground that the two accused produced fabricated evidence such as affidavits. There is a need to interrogate them to know who their political masters are, as the apex court observed that the matter was politicized,” public prosecutor Mitesh Amin.
They were detained when Ahmedabad Crime Branch Inspector DB Barad filed an FIR against them in response to the Supreme Court ruling that cleared Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 riot charges. Zakia Jafri, the wife of former Congressman Ehsaan Jafri, who was killed by a mob in the Gulbarg Society massacre in February 2002, had filed a petition, but the court had rejected it.
