Setalvad complained to the court that she was picked up from Mumbai without any arrest warrant, and also questioned whether it justified to arrest her on the basis of FIR….reports Asian Lite News
An Ahmedabad court on Sunday sent former state DGP R.B. Sreekumar and activist Teesta Setalvad to five days police custody.
While the two were to be produced again in court on Friday, the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate granted permission to produce them on Saturday, as police requested the court that they are busy on July 1st due to Jagannath Yatra.
Setalvad complained to the court that she was picked up from Mumbai without any arrest warrant, and also questioned whether it justified to arrest her on the basis of FIR. She also alleged that she was illegally kept in custody from 3 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. on Saturday, and for a forgery case, Gujarat Police sent an ATS team to arrest her.
She also even submitted that she is cooperating with the investigation team.
Setalvad was represented by advocate Somnath Vats and Sreekumar by advocate S.M. Vora.
On the other hand, Special Public Prosecutor Mitesh Amin submitted that police need their custody for 14 days, because they need to investigate who was funding the Setalvad’s NGO, and who was instigating to run a maliciousAcampaign against the state government.
Police need their custody to investigate who helped them to forge documents, who hatched the conspiracy and why, he said, alleging they did all this to mislead the judicial process.
Zafar Sareshwal lambasts Teesta
Businessman and former Chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Zafar Sareshwala has lambasted Teesta Setalvad and her NGO, Center for Justice and Peace (CJP), for misusing the 2002 riots case and the cause of the Muslims.
Speaking exclusively to IANS, Sareshwala on Monday said that Setalvad and her NGO never worked for the upliftment of the 2002 riot victims of Gujarat, and were only using the plight of the victims for their ulterior agenda.
Without naming Congress’ late leader Ahmed Patel, Sareshwala said, “Congress party’s big leader from Gujarat, who was considered to be the most powerful in the country was backing Teesta and he worked in Gujarat. The said leader never worked for the betterment of Muslims, forget the riot victims.”
Sareshwala also alleged that the Congress never helped Muslims.
The Muslim businessman has alleged, “Teesta wanted to build her Taj Mahal on the graves of riot victim Muslims.”
According to the Muslim leader, “Late Haren Pandya, Gordhan Zadafia, Pravin Togadia, Babu Bajrangi and Jaydeep Patel were behind the 2002 riots. Haren Pandya had led a mob that torched my house, the mob torched a mosque in Vasna, but none of them were in the accused list prepared by Teesta and her organisation.”
He had raised these issues way back in 2002-03, but he was termed as anti-Muslim, said Zafar.
Questioning Teesta and her organisation’s intent, Sareshwala said, “Some 1,600 innocent Muslims were killed, 1000 business premises were set on fire in Ahmedabad. How many riot victim did Teesta visit? How many riot victims’ were rehabilitated by her or her organisation. On the contrary, other Muslim organisations like Gujarat Sarvajanik Welfare Trust and Afzal Memon, Jamiat-E-Ulema-E- Hind, Siyasat, and other organisations have rehabilitated the families of the victims.”
Suspecting Teesta’s motive, Zafar also made a point, “The Special Investigation Team was appointed by the Supreme Court, the apex court was monitoring the investigation, in seven major riot cases, the SIT has successfully investigated, and got the guilty convicted. That was accepted by Teesta and her team, but if the same team gives clean chit to the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, they have all the objections. This itself exposes her stand.”