Press Statement of All India Secular Forum (AISF) on harassment by Govt. of Gujarat of IPS Officer Shri Sanjiv Bhat

Mumbai, Dated: 13^th October                                                                                  

All India Secular Forum (AISF) strongly condemns the harassment of IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt by the Government of Gujarat. Shri Bhatt was not allowed to meet his family members and even his lawyer and was reportedly denied home food. Shri Bhatt is being treated like a criminal. AISF demands that his incarceration must end immediately and he should be enlarged on bail.

Shri Sanjiv Bhatt is not the only IPS officer to be harassed and mistreated. Anyone who has dared to reveal the facts contrary to the stand of the Gujarat Government have similarly faced harassment. R B Sreekumar, former DGP, Gujarat, Rahul Sharma, Kuldeep Sharma and Rajneesh Rai, are examples of individuals who have faced harassment. Rather than harassing officials, it should be left to the appropriate courts to determine the truth behind allegations of the officers concerned.

Shri Sanjiv Bhatt is a key witness in the Zakia Ahsan Jafri and Citizens for Justice and Peace criminal complaint against the Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 61 others and the harassment is with a view to intimidate an important witness and tampering evidence. This would also give a signal to other witnesses and deter them from deposing fearlessly in the cases pending in the court. Shri Sanjiv Bhatt has claimed that he was present in the meeting held on 27^th February 2002 and addressed by the Chief Minister asking the police officials to allow the Hindus to vent their anger against the Muslim on the following day.

Shri Bhatt has also filed an affidavit in the Gujarat High Court stating therein that at the relevant time he had come across very important documentary evidence regarding to the role of certain highly placed State functionaries/politicians and senior police officers of the State of Gujarat in the killing of Shri Haren Pandya. His affidavit further stated that the said documentary evidence was immediately forwarded under a report to the Home Department, Government of Gujarat for further appropriate action as required by law. He further stated in his affidavit that on the very same afternoon, he received a phone call from the then Minister of State for Home, Shri Amit Shah, expressing severe displeasure about the report and documentary evidence forwarded to the Home Department by Bhatt and it was conveyed to him . that the report under which the unsavoury documentary evidence was forwarded to the Home Department should be immediately destroyed and obliterated. All this provides the motive behind harassment of Shri Bhatt.

By:
Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer
Patron, All India Secular Forum