BJP not sparing even dead, says Cong after SIT names Ahmed Patel in affidavit

Ahmedabad/New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday alleged that BJP was making false allegations against late Ahmed Patel to cover up the "sins" of the Gujarat riots.

The Congress' rebuttal came a day after the Gujarat police's Special Investigation Team (SIT) submitted an affidavit in a court in Ahmedabad stating that arrested activist Teesta Setalvad was part of a "larger conspiracy" carried out at the behest of Ahmed Patel with the political objective of "dismissal or destabilisation of the elected government in Gujarat by hook or by crook".

In a statement, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said the party "categorically refutes the mischievous charges manufactured" against the late Ahmed Patel.

BJP's "political vendetta machine" clearly does not even spare the departed who were his political adversaries, the Congress general secretary said.

"This SIT is dancing to the tune of its political master and will sit wherever it is told to. We know how an earlier SIT chief was rewarded with a diplomatic assignment after he had given a 'clean chit' to the chief minister," Ramesh said.

He alleged giving judgment through the press, in an ongoing judicial process, through "puppet investigative agencies who trumpet wild allegations as supposed findings", has been the hallmark of the Modi-Shah duo's tactics for years.

"This is nothing but another example of the same with the added object of vilifying a deceased person since he is unable and unavailable to refute such brazen lies," Ramesh alleged.

Setalvad, along with former Director General of Police (DGP) R B Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, was arrested by the city crime branch for allegedly fabricating evidence to implicate innocent persons in the 2002 riots cases, under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 468 (forgery) and 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offence), among other offences. Citing the statements of a witness, the SIT, while opposing Setalvad's bail plea, told the court on Friday that the conspiracy was carried out at the behest of late Ahmed Patel.

At Patel's behest, Setalvad received Rs 30 lakh following the post-Godhra riots in 2002 after meeting him on two occasions. Meetings were also held at Patel's residence in New Delhi, where Setalvad and Bhatt met the Congress leader "four months after the riots in a clandestine manner", it said. Setalvad used to meet the leaders of a "prominent national party in power at that time in Delhi to implicate names of senior leaders of the BJP government in riot cases", the SIT further claimed.

In several meetings held with political leaders after the riots, it was discussed by the accused person "with leaders of a prominent national party in power at the time to implicate senior leaders of the BJP government of Gujarat in these riots cases."

The record shows that "top Congress leaders of Gujarat'' were in constant touch with Bhatt during the period in consideration. Bhatt was "holding personal meetings with senior Congress leaders as well," it said.

It cited another witness to claim that in 2006 Setalvad had asked a Congress leader why the party was giving "chance to only Shabana and Javed" and not making her a member of the Rajya Sabha.