After top cop's reply, Julio Ribeiro hits back with stinging letter

New Delhi: Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Julio Ribeiro on Wednesday wrote back to the Delhi Police Commissioner after the top cop in the Capital responded to his allegations of bias in the north-east Delhi riots probe. Ribeiro stingingly said that Commissioner SN Shrivastava had failed to address his questions on why three prominent BJP leaders were not being probed in his letter to him.

"I realise that it is difficult, indeed impossible, to justify the license given to the three B.J.P. stalwarts I named — licence to rant, rave and threaten those who are peacefully protesting perceived wrongs. If the speakers were Muslims or Leftists the police would have surely taken them in for sedition," Ribeiro said.

He went on, "I note in your e-mail to me that

you have doubted the patriotism of the three who I named as true patriots. The three include Harsh

Mander, Professor Apoorvanand and me. I have not described one else as such and hence my surmise. Harsh and Apoorvanand are Gandhians. I should have

remembered that Gandhians have lost favour with this regime."

But before Ribeiro signed off, he left a piece of advice for Shrivastava, saying, "After talking to you on the phone and perusing your letter I have decided to put myself in your shoes! How would I dispel the doubts that your retired brother officers still have about Delhi Police investigations in the NE Delhi riots? I would quickly file the charge-sheets in all the 753 cases, including specially the Conspiracy case registered by your Special

Cell and get the evidence authenticated in a Court of law. More pertinently I would not prolong the UAPA case by arresting persons just a day or two before the time limit expires for filing the charge-sheet."