On Monday, a Gujarat court denied RB Sreekumar’s request for release in a case involving fabricated evidence relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots, ruling that there was sufficient evidence to convict the defendants.
A sessions court in this city denied the former director general of police (DGP) RB Sreekumar’s request for release. Sreekumar is accused of putting forward fabricated evidence to frame “innocent people” and malign Gujarat in relation to the 2002 post-Gujarat riots.
According to the court of extra sessions judge AR Patel’s judgement from Monday, the attorney general should be given the chance to submit evidence against the accused since, at least on the surface, there is enough proof to prosecute him.
The prosecution claimed that the defendant assisted in drafting the complaint made on June 8, 2006, under sections of the Indian Penal Code like 302 (murder) and 120 (b) (conspiracy) against the then-chief minister Narendra Modi and others by Zakia Jafri, the widow of the deceased former Congress member Ehsan Jafri.
Sreekumar reportedly planned a conspiracy and met with other individuals in several states to carry it out. According to the court’s ruling, the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) established that an audio recording presented as evidence belonged to the defendant.
Social activist Teesta Setalvad, former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, and Sreekumar are all charged in the case.
According to the prosecution, they engaged in a criminal conspiracy to create fake evidence in order to get innocent persons sentenced to death in instances related to the Gujarat riots.
When the 2002 Gujarat riots occurred, Sreekumar, an IPS officer from the 1971 batch who served as the additional DGP in command of the armed unit, filed a discharge plea, alleging that no case had been established against him.
In June 2022, the crime section of the Ahmedabad city police lodged charges against the three suspects, and a special investigation team (SIT) was established to look into the matter. On September 21 of last year, the chargesheet was submitted.
While Setalvad and Sreekumar, both from Mumbai, who were detained in June 2022, are presently free on conditional release, Bhatt is incarcerated in Palanpur, Gujarat’s Banaskantha district, where he is currently serving a life sentence for a custodial killing.
After the Supreme Court last year rejected a plea challenging the clean bill of health provided by a prior SIT to then-Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others in matters relating to post-Godhra communal riots, a FIR was filed against them.
The Sabarmati Express train that was set on fire by a crowd on February 27, 2002, close to Godhra station, was the catalyst for the Gujarat riots. In the event, 59 passengers—mostly Hindu Karsevaks returning from Ayodhya—were burned beyond recognition.
All three have been charged with conspiring to falsify evidence in an effort to falsely accuse “innocent people” of a crime carrying the death penalty in connection with the 2002 riots.
A copy of a complaint Zakia Jafri made in June 2006, in which she accused 63 people, including the then-CM Modi, of “wilful dereliction of duty,” is included among the documentary evidence in the chargesheet.
On February 28, 2002, one day after the Godhra train burning, 68 persons were murdered during riots at Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Housing Society. Ehsan Jafri was one among them.
