#dnaEdit: Why arrest Teesta?

The dogged persistence of the Gujarat police in attempting to place the wife-husband activist duo of Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand under arrest — to probe allegations of diversion of funds meant for a museum for 2002 Gujarat riot victims — is indeed worrisome. The museum project, however, has since been shelved. The way the charges against the activists are now playing out strongly suggest political vendetta. A significant delay of nine months was incurred between the Gujarat police receiving the complaint from some residents of Gulbarg society in March 2013 and registration of the FIR in January 2014. It has been pointed out by Setalvad, and perhaps rightly so, that the FIR was a vindictive measure after she dared to challenge a December 2013 Ahmedabad sessions court order, which accepted the SIT report exonerating the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of culpability for the riots. Neither the Gujarat police nor the high court order rejecting Teesta’s anticipatory bail plea has convincingly explained why her arrest was the only course left for the police. By no measure of criminality are these the gravest of offences. It is neither a murder case nor a corruption scam. The complainants against Setalvad are not the donors who had contributed to the museum fund or to Setalvad’s NGOs, or the Gulbarg society office-bearers, or the fellow-trustees of the two NGOs. On the contrary, these persons have come to the defence of the embattled couple.

This is a case based entirely on documentary evidence. The Gujarat police has taken one view on the evidence on record, while Setalvad has an alternative explanation, clarifying that these expenses were incurred for salaries, legal aid to riot victims, and her acts had the sanction of the trustees and the Gulbarg office-bearers. The best course before the Gujarat police then is to respect Setalvad and Anand’s rights to personal liberty. Nothing stops the police from questioning the couple without resorting to arrests. It will help iron out any residual issues the cops may have before filing a charge sheet. The Criminal Procedure Code offers the police enormous leeway in effecting arrests, but despite strictures from higher courts, this power to effect arrests is employed without consistency or prudence. For instance, in the Sunanda Pushkar poisoning case, Shashi Tharoor has been called for questioning multiple times without the Delhi Police seeking custodial interrogation.

The Gujarat government’s move to arrest Setalvad is at odds with its unbecoming haste in reinstating police officers who are accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Ishrat Jahan fake encounter cases. Why these double standards? The courts are yet to acquit the police officers and entrusting them with law and order duties before acquittal is a travesty of justice. Gujarat has to be thankful to Setalvad and Anand for the convictions that the state has secured in the 2002 riots. It was the untiring efforts of this couple that ensured that many riot victims gained the courage to depose as prosecution witness against the perpetrators of the riots. Perhaps, the state government can help the Gulbarg society residents by lifting the Disturbed Areas Act which prevents the society’s Muslim residents from selling their property to other communities. After Setalvad abandoned the museum project in 2012 owing to escalating real estate prices despite toying with the idea for four years, the imposition of the Act at Gulbarg in 2013 sent prices falling and could be the genesis of the complaint against her from a discontented section of residents. The Teesta case shows how the State has the wherewithal for single-minded persecution of those who stand in opposition. Counter dissidents politically; quelling them with State power must not become the hallmark of the new India that Prime Minister Modi in now seeking to build.